Missiles Shouldn’t Sink Arms Sale to Saudis : They Turned to China in Frustration--a Point Congress Has Missed

Congressional opposition to the Reagan Administration’s latest Saudi arms proposal will further exacerbate the difficulties that the Administration is having in trying to formulate and implement a sane and work-able policy in the Middle East.

The Administration package would allow the Saudis to purchase a $350-million support program for their fleet of AWACS airplanes and $500 million worth of Bradley fighting vehicles.

But much of the congressional opposition results from Saudi Arabia’s purchase of Chinese surface-to-surface missiles. Normally equipped to carry nuclear warheads, these missiles have a range of more than 1,000 miles, making them capable of reaching targets not only in Tehran but in Israel as well. The Saudis have pledged to use only conventional warheads on the missiles, and now say that they will sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which they had previously rejected. In the meantime they broke diplomatic relations with Iran.

These two events have in themselves interesting political implications. For many years Washington would approach the Saudis about becoming signatories to the nuclear-arms-control treaty, only to hear the same answer: “We’ll sign when Israel does.” Israel has consistently refused because of a well-acknowledged storehouse of nuclear devices, which it refuses to submit to any international inspection or control.

Breaking diplomatic relations with Iran shows a greater frustration and a greater fear of Tehran than has heretofore been expressed. Undoubtedly some of it has to do with the difficulties that the Saudis have experienced with Iranian pilgrims at Mecca. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini has announced that he plans to send at least 150,000 pilgrims to Mecca this summer , raising Saudi security concerns. But for the most part the break indicates that the Saudis now consider Iran a far more dangerous adversary than Israel.

Given this Iranian threat, the purchase of the Chinese missiles can be viewed as the culmination of the Saudis’ frustrations over Washington’s reluctance to supply them with the sophisticated weaponry that they feel they need.

The controversy first arose in 1978, when President Jimmy Carter--fulfilling a promise made during the Nixon and Ford Administrations--tried to sell 60 F-15s to the Saudis. The package, postponed in earlier years because of the opposition of Israel and its supporters in Congress, passed by only a narrow margin in the Senate. It took a superhuman effort by the Administration, with the final vote being in doubt until the last minute.

After the fall of the Shah of Iran and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War, Washington in 1980 sent U.S.-manned AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia to help counter the Khomeini regime’s threat to bomb the Saudi oil fields. For the long term, however, the Saudis wanted their own AWACS planes. In 1981 President Reagan sent the sale proposal to Congress, where an even harder battle than the F-15 sale awaited. This time the House overwhelmingly rejected the package, but the Senate, again by a razor-thin margin, upheld the Administration’s sale.

Rather than be subjected to congressional debate, the Saudis turned to the Frenchwhen they decided to upgrade and modernize their navy in 1979. And in 1985, when the Reagan Administration withdrew another F-15 sale proposal because of congressional opposition, Saudi Arabia turned to Britain and purchased Tornado interceptor-tactical bombers for $4 billion. In both cases the big losers were the American manufacturers, who saw these orders amounting to billions of dollars go to the French and British, as well as to Israel, whose security was diminished because no restraints were attached to the use of those weapons as would have been the case in a U.S. sale.

The Saudis have felt that they needed surface-to-surface missiles, and had considered requesting both Lance and Pershing missiles from the United States. But U.S. officials discouraged them from making a formal request. Hence the Saudis went to China, whose missile not only can carry a nuclear warhead but also has a longer range than either of the two U.S. missiles that the Saudis had wanted.

Yet, despite the ire of Congress, the Saudi package will probably be approved --the AWACS surveillance system is a key to the American policy of policing the Persian Gulf. A bitter debate will offend the Saudis but should not cause any permanent damage to the overall bilateral relationship. After all, the U.S.-Saudi relationship of the last decade has been aptly described as a marriage of convenience and necessity--with neither party able to afford a divorce.