The US and its Arab allies are knitting together a missile defense system across the Persian Gulf to protect cities,oil refineries,pipelines and military bases from an Iranian attack,according to officials and public documents. It is an enterprise that is meant to send a pointed message to Tehran,and that becomes more urgent as tensions with Iran rise. But it will require partner nations in the gulf to put aside rivalries,share information and coordinate their arsenals of interceptor missiles to create a defensive shield encompassing all the regional allies. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton,among the first to raise the need for the missile shield three years ago,sought to spur the gulf allies on during a recent visit to Saudi Arabia. We can do even more to defend the gulf through cooperation on ballistic missile defense, she said during a session in March of the Gulf Cooperation Council,which includes Bahrain,Kuwait,Oman,Qatar,Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Sometimes to defend one nation effectively you might need a radar system in a neighboring nation. That would include deploying radars to increase the range of early warning coverage across the gulf,as well as introducing command,control and communications systems that could exchange that information with missile interceptors whose triggers are held by individual countries. For that purpose,the Pentagon last year announced a contract for the sale of two advanced missile defense radars to the UAE. And early this year,officials disclosed that a similar high-resolution,X-band missile defense radar would be located in Qatar. The objective in the gulf is shared by a more widely publicised missile defense shield being installed in Europe: to deter any Iranian attack and,if required,to blunt the effect of missiles launched against allied territory and US forces. But the similarities end there. The US European initiatives have been embraced by NATO and are being put into place after formal negotiations with countries that will host early warning radars,ground-based interceptors and Navy warships equipped to track ballistic missiles and shoot them down. In contrast,the Persian Gulf effort is mostly behind the scenes with billions of dollars in arms sales negotiated bilaterally between the US and nations in the region. Thus,the next challenge is coaxing gulf nations to put aside their rivalries and share early warning radar data,and then integrate the capabilities of their unilateral interceptor systems to extend defenses over the entire region. If the planned European missile shield is growing from a full engineering blueprint,the approach in the Persian Gulf is more like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. And with the latest of arms sales to Kuwait,Saudi Arabia,UAE important pieces are coming together that,when connected,will bring toward fruition a project that US officials have pursued for years. The US own forces provide a core capability for ballistic missile defenses in the gulf,in particular the Navy vessels with advanced Aegis missile defense systems.
