The Telegraph, London, Sept. 21, on Obama administration wanting to avoid nuclear arms race with Iran:

While we debate this country’s defense requirements almost exclusively within the context of the need for public spending cuts, military decisions being taken in Washington and the Middle East are a response to the direct threat to security posed by Iran. The announcement that the Gulf Arab states have embarked on the world’s largest peacetime rearmament exercise … marks a new development in America’s strategy towards Tehran’s nuclear programme.

President Obama is selling the deal to Congress (which must approve it) as an opportunity to create 70,000 jobs in the defense industry. But its geopolitical significance is far greater. Tellingly, the response from Israel to the fact that its Arab enemies are about to receive such advanced weaponry has been muted — a sign that both sides in the Middle East conflict now regard Iran, rather than each other, as their greatest threat. Israel has reportedly sought assurances that its own U.S.-made weapons will have a technological edge over those supplied to the Arabs.

The arms deal is further evidence of how Tehran’s nuclear ambitions have thrown a shadow across the whole of the region, with unpredictable consequences. Some may be positive: the emergence of a common enemy might concentrate the minds of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in the talks now under way. The deal also suggests that America’s bruising experience in Iraq and Afghanistan has persuaded the Obama administration that another foreign foray is simply not tenable. Rather, they hope that better-equipped countries on the frontline will be able to contain Tehran, and that a nuclear arms race in the world’s most unstable region can be avoided.

Online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk