News

This weekend’s newspapers were filled with stories about how the United
States is providing ballistic missile defense (BMD) to four countries on
the Arabian Peninsula. The New York Times carried a front-page story on
the United States providing anti-missile defenses to Kuwait, the United
Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman, as well as stationing BMD-capable,
Aegis-equipped warships in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, the front page
of The Washington Post carried a story saying that “the Obama
administration is quietly working with Saudi Arabia and other Persian
Gulf allies to speed up arms sales and rapidly upgrade defenses for oil
terminals and other key infrastructure in a bid to thwart future attacks
by Iran, according to former and current U.S. and Middle Eastern
government officials.”

Obviously, the work is no longer “quiet.” In fact, Washington has been
publicly engaged in upgrading defensive systems in the area for some
time. Central Command head Gen. David Petraeus recently said the four
countries named by the Times were receiving BMD-capable Patriot Advanced
Capability-3 (PAC-3) batteries, and at the end of October the United
States carried out its largest-ever military exercises with Israel,
known as Juniper Cobra.

More interesting than the stories themselves was the Obama
administration’s decision to launch a major public relations campaig... >>>