OUR NEW 'SURROGATE' IN THE PERSIAN GULF
Volman, Daniel
Our new 'surrogate' in the Persian Gulf Can Sadat fill the late Shah's shoes? Daniel Volman At first glance, President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt would seem to be an unlikely successor to the late...
...military capabilities in the Persian Gulf to ensure "the free movement of Middle East oil...
...But only Egypt— with armed personnel numbering 350,000 and the experience of four major wars since 1948—-is both willing and able to replace Iran as a local police power...
...Under the direction of Defense Secretary Weinberger, the Pentagon is now rushing these arms to Egypt and holding discussions with the Egyptians on the sale of another 500 M-113 APCs and an undisclosed number of F-15 fighters, the most sophisticated in the U.S...
...Hundreds, perhaps thousands, more will have to be sent in the next few years...
...Sadat openly backs Abdul Munam al-Hoony, the leader of the Libyan opposition, who is now living in Egypt...
...assistance could assume responsibility for ensuring stability in a region that extended from Algeria and the Mediterranean to Somalia or beyond...
...Since Egypt, unlike Iran, is incapable of paying for the arms, these arms deals will be financed with U.S...
...Sadat lost no time in pressing Washington for more advanced weaponry, offering to use U.S.-supplied arms to defend "my fellow Africans, my Arab brothers, and anyone in the area...
...Along with the six already delivered, these provided Egypt with a substantial capacity for military operations throughout the Middle East and North Africa...
...In July 1980, a squadron of twelve Like the Shah, Sadat may face revolution F-4E fighter-bombers and 250 more U.S...
...The Sadat government has responded with more repression, including the recent arrest of thirty-eight members of the left-wing National Progressive Union Party...
...access to the Persian Gulf, Defense Secretary Weinberger says, "we have to be there in a Daniel Volman is the author of "A Continent Besieged: Foreign Military Activists in Africa since 1975," published last year by the Institute for Policy Studies...
...A year later, President Ford approved the sale of six C-130 military transport planes to Egypt, and the U. S. arms pipeline was officially open...
...arms embargo if Sadat broke ties with Moscow and agreed to peace talks with Israel...
...The substitution of Egypt for Iran as regional surrogate follows inevitably from President Carter's decision to expand U.S...
...Although the fall of the Shah provided the impetus for an active U.S...
...Air Force personnel to the Egyptian air base at Qena to conduct a series of test exercises with the newly-established American naval forces in the Indian Ocean...
...intervention in the Persian Gulf...
...Through Sudan, Egypt has smuggled arms to Eritrean separatists in Ethiopia, and in September 1979, Egypt began supplying arms to Morocco, whose troops have been engaged for five years in a costly attempt to annex the neighboring Western Sahara...
...credible way...
...Since then, the continuing failure to address acute economic and political problems, as well as the disclosure of Egypt's role in the American raid on Teheran in April 1980, has spurred further popular unrest...
...military instructors and technicians...
...In 1979, following border clashes between North and South Yemen, a group of Egyptian military advisers arrived in North Yemen to complement massive arms shipments from the United States...
...His backers in Washington may soon find themselves confronted with another anti-American revolution in the Middle East...
...arsenal...
...After the seizure of the American embassy in Teheran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter announced a second $3 billion arms deal involving forty F-16 fighters, 244 M-60 tanks, and 555 M-113 APCs...
...Furthermore, despite cosmetic changes in the political system, Egypt is still essentially a one-party state which depends on political repression to control dissent...
...During a visit to Cairo by Defense Secretary Harold Brown, Sadat said Egyptian forces modernized and re-equipped with U.S...
...But that is the work Washington has cut out for him...
...In addition to serving as regional gendarme, Egypt clearly has a major part to play in Pentagon strategies for direct U.S...
...tax dollars through the Foreign Military Sales credit program...
...In April 1977, amid growing concern over Soviet activities in Angola and Ethiopia, Sadat came to Washington for discussions with the newly installed Carter Administration...
...Cairo can now deploy these forces more than 2,000 miles beyond its borders...
...With its fleet of thirty-one C-130 transport planes...
...The fragility of this control was dramatically demonstrated in January 1977, when violent protests against Sadat's economic policies erupted throughout the country...
...In March 1979, the Carter Administration announced the sale of thirty-five F-4E fighter-bombers, 750 M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs), and eleven more C-130 transports—an arms package worth $1.5 billion...
...Sadat's objective is to use American patronage to restore Egypt to its Nasser-era position as the political and military leader of the Arab world...
...We must have a presence in the region, and there must be facilities there that we can use to make our presence credible...
...The transfer of such large quantities of advanced weaponry to Egypt will require the services of American military technicians to maintain the equipment and to train Egyptian troops...
...The Reagan Administration is also committed to stationing up to 2,500 American troops in the Sinai Peninsula as part of an international peacekeeping force, once Israel withdraws in April 1982...
...Two months later, the Administration announced the sale of fourteen more C-130 transports...
...Air Force personnel were sent to Cairo West Airport to hold joint military exercises with the Egyptian Air Force and to show, according to The Washington Post, "how quickly the American military could come to the aid of countries in the Middle East...
...To prepare for even more ambitious operations in the future, Egypt has begun to transform parts of its armed forces—no longer needed for war with Israel—into commando and paratroop units...
...Egyptian troops and advisers are also reportedly assisting in Dhofar province...
...The riots ended only after two days of martial rule during which seventy-nine people died and nearly 2,000 were arrested...
...Either choice is a poor one, and each carries high risks...
...Other countries in the region— Somalia, Oman, Kenya—have agreed to let American forces use their bases...
...The full implications of these exercises did not become apparent until April 1980, when six C-130 transports and an E-3A aircraft were flown from this base into Iran for use in the abortive attempt to rescue the American hostages in Teheran...
...Further afield, Sadat has provided some of Egypt's now surplus Soviet-made weaponry, along with Egyptian military advisers, to bolster unstable pro-Western regimes in the region...
...America, the Gulf region, and the world would be better served by a decision to disavow the surrogate strategy entirely...
...surrogate in the Persian Gulf is the possibility that the Sadat government may prove to be even less stable than the Shah's was...
...Then, as in Iran, the Administration will be faced with a choice between accepting the loss of a surrogate or intervening militarily to save it...
...Saudi Arabia has allowed the United States to station AWACS radar patrol planes on its soil...
...Though it will take several years to deliver all this weaponry and to train Egyptian forces, Sadat has already demonstrated Egypt's value as a surrogate...
...Egypt has also supplied arms to pro-Western insurgents in Chad, since Libyan-backed forces emerged victorious from a second round of civil war there...
...In January 1980, President Carter dispatched two E-3A radar patrol planes and 250 U.S...
...military alliance with Egypt, the military relationship between the United States and Egypt actually began in 1975, when then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pledged to lift a U.S...
...Unlike Iran, Egypt is not an oil-producing nation, and its stagnant economy is badly in need of reform...
...The largest Egyptian operation held so far has involved the airlift of $300 million worth of Soviet arms to Somalia, after Moscow cut off deliveries in 1977...
...Critics suggest that the presence of growing numbers of American technicians, troops, and warplanes in Egypt, and the announced plans to turn Ras Banas into a base for the Rapid Deployment Force, are certain to provoke public hostility to Sadat's military alliance with the United States, and lead to deeper American involvement...
...During Secretary Haig's visit to Egypt last April, he concluded an informal agreement to permit the United States to construct an airfield big enough to accommodate B-52 bombers and facilities to house a full division of American troops at Ras Banas...
...Daniel Volman At first glance, President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt would seem to be an unlikely successor to the late Shah of Iran...
...According to Pentagon official*, bases in the Sinai will be used to train American forces in desert warfare and to test military hardware under Middle Eastern conditions...
...Since late 1978, Sadat has moved 20,000 troops and 600 tanks to Egypt's western border with Libya, the site of a brief border war in 1977...
...Now, under the direction of Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, the Reagan Administration is planning to make new arms deals and establish permanent American military bases in the region...
...The Reagan Administration has requested $900 million in arms credits for 1982, and sales over the next few years could easily total $10 billion to $15 billion...
...This was followed in November by the ten-day training exercise known as Operation Bright Star, the first foreign demonstration of America's ability to conduct a full-scale military operation in the region...
...The United States has already begun supplying the Egyptian armed forces with $5 billion worth of sophisticated weaponry—along with 300 U.S...
...Some 100 technicians were dispatched to Egypt in September 1979, and another 200 in July 1980...
...The Pentagon originally planned to hold Operation Bright Star at the Egyptian base at Ras Banas, but shifted the exercise to Cairo West Airport because Ras Banas lacked adequate facilities...
...To pay for all this, the Pentagon is requesting $106 million in its 1982 budget...
...according to Egyptian officials, the complete modernization of the base might eventually cost up to $2.6 billion...
...To protect U.S...
...What jeopardizes these plans to establish Egypt as the new U.S...
...Last November, American warplanes, helicopter gunships, and combat soldiers were dispatched to Egypt to provide the first foreign demonstration of the new Rapid Deployment Force...
...Following in the steps of the Carter Administration, the Reagan Administration is determined to have Egypt play the role that Iran played before the Shah fell—the role of America's surrogate in the Persian Gulf region...
Vol. 45 • June 1991 • No. 7
