The Gulf Crisis and New World Order — Page 163
The Gulf Crisis & The New World Order about, and who the beneficiaries are. The continuous supply of sophisticated armament to the battle areas is costing billions of dollars - literally, mountains of money - and you must have heard of the agreement that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia will foot the bill for fifty percent of the war-expenses. The remaining fifty percent has been left unspecified, and bas not been allocated to any country. But I can assure you that it will be wrested from Kuwait or Bahrain, or other states in the Sheikhdom. At least the better part of it will be collected from them. In the ultimate analysis, then, this war is benefitting a party that is not among the active combatants - and that is Israel. In an mterview that was aired today, a Western politician has openly admitted that our call to destroy Iraq has always been due to our concern for a potential threat to Israel. These scud missile attacks have validated our concerns; for these abortive attempts by Iraq to hit Israel - due to the primitive delivery system and rudimentary power of destruction - would have proven far more destructive. If this war had not interrupted the weapons-development programme of Iraq, these missiles would have been fitted with far more lethal war heads and would have targeted Israel much more affectively. A WAR GIVING BIRTH TO A DREADFUL AFTERMATH Thus, as far as the objectives of this war are concerned, Israel is the primary beneficiary. As for the economic benefits of this war, all Western countries are the beneficiaries. The reason for this has to do with the truce reached with the Soviet Union which has rendered the bulk of these armaments (now diverted to the war in the Mid-East) useless and without any intended target. Most of the war expenses are on account of the price of these armaments. The transportation expenses of these is mainly borne by the freely flowing Arab oil. At any rate, the margin of saving that goes to the Western powers is great, who are marketing their weapons, new as well as the outdated ones, in a war which is being financed by someone else. The economic gain from this war is, therefore, entirely that of the Western nations. A lot of Western manpower is being used to wage this war; some Western lives will be lost but a lot of economic pay-off would also be funnelled to the West. The Islamic world has nothing to gain but great losses to sustain. 163