Word: petraeus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been "the best recruiting officer" for U.S. military efforts to partner with Arab states over the past year. That's according to General David Petraeus, who as commander of Centcom is responsible for overseeing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and security efforts throughout the region. "There were certain countries which used to hold us at arm's length that have over the last year embraced Central Command in certain cooperative endeavors," Petraeus told TIME in an interview on Dec. 13, citing ballistic-missile defense agreements and shared early-warning systems. "Ahmadinejad's rhetoric...
What's been good for Centcom has also been good for the high-tech U.S. arms industry. Despite the global recession, Arab states have signed huge deals for U.S. military hardware, whose sophistication has been on full display in two long wars in the neighborhood. Petraeus said countries in the region now deploy eight Patriot missile-interceptor batteries - up from zero a few years ago - made by Raytheon Corp. And the Pentagon last month announced that Kuwait had ordered upgrades of its Patriot missile system, in a deal worth $410 million. But Raytheon isn't the only beneficiary of anxiety...
...Iran's air force is not what has the region nervous. Much of last weekend's annual Manama Dialogue in Bahrain - a conference of top military and government officials from across the region, where Petraeus spoke with TIME and which was also attended by an Iranian delegation - was devoted to angry clashes over Tehran's nuclear program and allegations that it is waging proxy warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. (See "Petraeus Zinger Wounds Air Force Egos...
...Petraeus, in language more blunt than that typically used by Obama Administration officials, lashed out that Iran, "which had become a theocracy, has become a thugocracy because of the hijacked elections and people's response to them." He said Arab hostility toward Iran had helped win support for U.S. strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, he said, there were almost daily attacks using explosive devices manufactured in Iran, while Tehran was using its leverage to strengthen Iranian influence over Iraq's government. Iran sells about 350 million watts of electricity a day to Iraq. "Iraqis see Iran expanding...
...Before the Obama Administration assumes that General Petraeus' track record in Iraq is transferable to Afghanistan, it should reflect more on a critical U.S. mistake in Vietnam. Much of the reason for the U.S. failure there can be traced to the assumption that General Edward Lansdale's successful approach to defeating the Philippine Huk insurgency would also work in Vietnam. Price Bingham Melbourne...