US plans to give more than $20 billion in military aid to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Sunni Arab states.

By Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorand Rasheed Abou-Alsamh | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Tel Aviv and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

US secretaries of Defense and State are using their high-profile meetings this week with Arab and Israeli leaders, in part to herald a new Bush administration strategy toward Iran: cold war-style containment.

The trip comes on the heels of a US proposal to offer $20 billion in military aid to Arab Gulf states (mostly Saudi Arabia) and a $30 billion package for Israel. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not mask the purpose of the deal when she called Iran "the single most important single-country challenge to ... US interests in the Middle East."

"The talks on Tuesday night between King Abdullah and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were very important, as they signaled the beginning of a political showdown between the US, Gulf states, and Egypt on the one hand, and Iran on the other," says Adel al-Toraifi, a Saudi analyst who focuses on his country's relations with Iran.

Mr. Toraifi says since the US "surge" in Iraq is not achieving fast results, America wants to shift attention to another front.

"The Americans were waiting for the surge in Iraq to take effect, but since the surge wasn't going very well they decided to announce the new offensive of containing Iran. It is important for the Bush Administration to some achievements in the Middle East" before a congressional review of the surge planned for September.

"What America is doing now is containment, saying that the peripheral states that are our allies have to be protected," says Meir Javedanfar, a Tel Aviv-based Iran expert and author of "The Nuclear Sphynx of Tehran."

"It looks inevitable that America will withdraw , so it's building a giant fence around Iraq by supporting the countries it has good relations with."

This may lead to shoring up Sunni states – particularly Iran's neighbors in the Gulf – who will be a main driver of US policy as an eventual draw-down of US forces in Iraq looks more likely.

Israel, which vociferously opposed US arms packages to the Saudis in the 1980s, has made it clear it's not opposed to this current deal. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he "understood" the US decision, and said "there is a need for a united front between the US and us regarding Iran."

"For Israel, the No. 1 priority is Iran, and in this case they see the Saudis as on the same side as Israel. They have a mutual interest in containing Iran," says Mr. Javedanfar.

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