Gulf States Set To Buy Iron Dome System

15:53, UK, Tuesday 13 October 2015


The Iron Dome missile system has been used to protect Israel

By Sam Kiley, Foreign Affairs Editor

Bahrain and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are in negotiations to buy the Israeli-developed Iron Dome anti-missile system to defend against "a growing arsenal of Iranian missiles".

The Israeli weapon, which has reduced the effectiveness of rockets fired out of Gaza into Israel by about 90% would be bought through Raytheon and other American contractors who developed the Iron Dome with Israeli arms giant Rafael.

A deal for the whole of the GCC, which includes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, would be worth tens, perhaps hundreds, of billions of dollars.

It would also include longer range interceptor missiles such as David's Sling, and the Arrow I and Arrow II which are capable of intercepting supersonic intercontinental ballistic missiles - also a joint venture between Israel and the US.

Khalid bin Mohammed al Khalifa, Bahrain's foreign minister said on the visit to London: "The Israelis have their small Iron Dome. We'll have a much bigger one in the GCC."

The sale of Israeli-developed weapons to a Gulf state, or states, would have been controversial for both the Israelis and the buyers a few years ago.

But both now see one of the main threats to them as the growing military strength and ambitions of Iran.

The US is quietly playing the "middle man" in the deal as a sweetener to bitterness caused in the Gulf over what the leadership in that region believe is a "naive" deal with Iran over its nuclear weapons programme.

"Iran has been trying to undermine and topple government in our region for years," the Bahrain foreign minister said.

He said that Iran's precision missile capacity was certain to increase as a consequence of the lifting of sanctions following the internationally brokered agreement with Tehran to end its nuclear weapons development.

"They will put a lot of money into this programme to develop techniques and tactics to defeat our missile defences ... the strategy appears to be one of saturation to stockpile enough missiles to overwhelm any defence system we build in the Gulf," he added.

As a result of this perceived threat, plans to buy Israeli weapons, via the US, would result in a profits bonanza for both American and Israeli firms.