Weapons are pouring into the Middle East at an unprecedented rate. The Pentagon recently announced that it would sell six tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft to Israel for $1.3 billion, American hardware (including Apache helicopters) is being rushed to the Iraqi government to help in its battle against al Qaeda, and Washington has also restored military aid to Egypt after a brief hiatus. But Uncle Sam isn't the only one delivering weapons to the region: Hezbollah has acquired parts of Russia's supersonic Yakhont missiles, which can strike vessels more than 75 miles off the coast of Lebanon, and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad continues to receive significant stockpiles of weapons from both Moscow and Tehran.
These may appear to be piecemeal acquisitions, but these and other new weapons are actively changing the military dynamic in the Middle East.
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