At a cost of $89 million to the American taxpayers, the U.S. Senate, with no hesitation, passed a bill that was attached by Republican Senator Joe Kyle, to the federal defense budget to deploy another sophisticated long-range radar system to Israel.

If this fraction of the tax money was proposed to reduce the pains in the hearts of one thousand owners of the foreclosed properties in the working class neighborhood of Chicago or for improving the educational quality of the pathetic school systems in the South Bronx, Bed Stuyvesant of Brooklyn or Spanish Harlem, to cite just a few examples, no doubt the same senators who enthusiastically and unanimously voted for the bill, would have rejected it outright with no hesitation or mercy.  The currently dominating political condition in the United States shows the nature and quality of the so-called democratic principals, drilled daily into the heads of the masses by the media, and also the non-existent influence of the working class on the governing institutions of the land.

What was the rush that the U.S. military amid the country’s financial and economic crisis had to speed up the deployment of a most powerful and therefore expensive system, called AN/TPY-2 forward-based X-band [1], a year earlier than it was scheduled previously?  The X-band system, deployed to Israel on September 26th, was originally scheduled for delivery in 2009 for joint training exercises, according to the U.S. European Command mission (EUCOM).  For reasons not explained by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, the ownership of Army/Navy Transportable Radar Surveillance remains with Washington and will be installed and operated permanently by 120 U.S. military personnel drawn from U.S. units stationed in Germany and across the rest of Europe.

The well-revealed secret of this rush delivery of the X-band radar system lies in the fact that the U.S. has finally come to the realization that with two active wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at hand and an explosive situation in Pakistan, with 170 million population and a large atomic arsenal, not to mention the ever-deepening financial and economic stranglehold canvassing not only the housing but also the banking and industrial sectors of the Western capitalist economies, it has, though unwillingly, resigned itself to a situation where it has to take the war-on-Iran option off the table and begin a dialogue with an ever-stronger and confident Iran.

It is also a well-known fact that the U.S. is quietly engaged in preliminary fact-finding talks with Iran which has become a huge source of anxiety for the Zionist ringleaders in Tel Aviv who, like egotistical servants, feel abandoned by the masters in Washington or cheaply sold for the benefit of the U.S. empire.  The delivery of an important element of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense Shield to Israel a year earlier plays the role of relaxing and calming down the sense of anxiety and desperation with regard to the current U.S.-Iran dialogue and could be considered as compensation for Israel’s loss of its junior role in shaping American foreign policy in the Middle East region.

The radar is to be installed at Israel’s Nevatim Air Base [2] in the Negev desert in the south of the country, making it the first time that U.S. Army personnel will be permanently stationed in Israel.  The type of X-band radar proposed by the U.S. Army works on the same wavelength as a microwave oven.  Its tremendous power gives it impressive precision and velocity.  It can locate an object the size of a baseball 2,900 miles (4,700 kilometers) away.  The X-based radar is designed to track ballistic missile warheads moving through space and provide ground-based missiles with the data needed to intercept them.  But serious concerns have been raised for the safety of the communities living near the radar.  For example in the Czech Republic where a similar type of radar is planned to be installed, 60% of the population remains opposed to the U.S. project, many due to public health concerns.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the radar would serve not only Israel, but also the U.S. military forces in the hemisphere.  The radar will be integrated with both the Israeli and the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) networks. It is prudent for U.S. citizens to know that prior to the present $89 million U.S. gift of radar to Israel, writes stratfor.com that “The now-operational Israeli Arrow Ballistic Missile System (BMD) in all likelihood would not have been possible without U.S. assistance and aid.” On one hand, the link between Israel’s currently operational Arrow Missiles through the medium of the X-band radar with the U.S. offense and defensive missile system suggests a broad integration of missile defense shields of the two countries.  On the other hand, the fact that the U.S. deployed the new radar in separate parts and under the radar shows that the U.S. gave lip-service to Iran, trying to avoid antagonizing it at a time with which it is engaged in complex negotiations.  

As to the needs, uses and introduction of such radar systems into the Middle East, various scenarios have already been advanced by the U.S. and Israeli sources, some of which are misleading.  For example, one story depicts the installation of the radar system and the permanent presence of its American crews as intended to restrain Israel from taking a unilateral military attack against the Iranian nuclear facilities and military establishment.  The converse scenario, mostly sponsored by pro-Zionist mouthpieces try to argue that the system is intended to strengthen Israel’s defensive ability against Iranian retaliation should Israel/or the U.S. decide to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, cities and vital command centers, including water reservoirs, communication centers, electrical grids and sewer systems.  The last and most plausible scenario is that the U.S. intends to add one more strategic military base to the other 1,000 military bases that it operates around the world for containing and intimidating the independent countries in the region like Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

AUTHOR
Ardeshir Ommani is a writer and an activist in the anti-war and anti-imperialist struggle for many years, including against the Vietnam War.  Ardeshir is a co-founder of the American-Iranian Friendship Committee (AIFC) which strives to build a movement promoting peace and preventing a U.S.-led war on Iran. See iranaifc.com [3], where news and analysis of U.S.-Iran’s relations can be found, along with observations of life in Iran based on recent visits to Iran.  Ardeshir helped launch the successful StopWarOnIran.org [4] campaign, the very first Iran internet anti-war campaign.