Iran nuclear crisis spurs arms race

Either directly or indirectly, the Iranian threat also has a hidden agenda because it is being implicitly viewed as good for business: the lucrative arms business.

The Western world is unloading some of its most sophisticated weapons - including state-of-the-art fighter planes and anti-missile defence systems - in the Gulf region, clinching multi-billion-dollar arms deals.

According to an analysis by Forecast International Inc. (FI), a leading U.S. defence market research firm, the GCC countries will account for about 60 percent of all defence spending in the region in 2010.

The prediction is that all six Gulf countries will invest over 63 billion dollars toward their armed forces and security this year, with two-thirds of the total coming from Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, the United States has aimed to create a strategic bulwark against the potential threat of Iran, evidenced by the previous administration's introduction in 2007 of a 20-billion-dollar package of government-to-government Foreign Military Sales (FMS) proposals intended for the Gulf Arab states.

It should not be forgotten that arms sales in the Middle East have also risen in the past few years due to the complete rebuilding of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) from scratch, Darling noted.

During a visit to Saudi Arabia in March, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates pledged to help most of the Gulf countries shore up their defences against their potentially nuclear-armed neighbour, Iran.