Obama the Super-salesman Pours Fuel on a Middle East In Flames

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: Washington: In the coming days, they'll be putting the finishing touches to the pavilions and adding up the orders at the massive Defence & Security Equipment International arms fair which opens in London's Docklands on September 15.

At the front of the queue, writing cheques worth billions of dollars, will be the Sunni Arab regimes of the Gulf monarchies, making the latest payments in an arms-buying splurge set to surge through the coming decade – in a region already coming apart at the seams.

Touring the Middle East to tamp down anxiety about Iranian expansionism after the signing of the long-awaited nuclear deal, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that Washington "had agreed to expedite certain arms sales that are needed and that have taken too long in the past". » | Paul McGeough | Chief foreign correspondent | Friday, September 11, 2015