The remarkable informal alliance that defended Israel from Iranian attack – The Post

Historical allies of Israel such as the United States, but also Jordan and Saudi Arabia participated in various roles: all united with the aim of countering Iran

The main reason why Israel managed to intercept the vast majority of drones and missiles launched by Iran during the night between Saturday and Sunday, and minimize the damage from the Iranian attack, is that it received extensive assistance both from its allies traditional ones, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, and by in many ways unexpected allies, such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

According to Israeli sources, Iran launched 170 suicide drones, 120 ballistic missiles and around 30 cruise missiles against Israel. It is a potentially enormous attack: just think that on 24 February 2022 the large missile attack with which Russia began the invasion of Ukraine involved the launch of 160-200 missiles, to hit a country that is 20 times larger than Israel. Unlike the Russian one, however, the Iranian attack had been widely announced, and its main aim was not to cause maximum destruction, but to send a political message: to carry out retaliation for the murder of Mohammad Reza Zahedi, an important general of the Revolutionary Guards, a very influential and powerful Iranian military force.

Despite this, Saturday night’s attack could still have caused great damage if the informal anti-Iranian alliance that intervened in Israel’s defense had not been so effective. In particular, US, British and Jordanian warplanes played an important role in shooting down the drones, which were almost all destroyed in Jordanian airspace before they arrived in Israel. The bulk of the missiles, however, were intercepted by sophisticated Israeli air defense systems.

Even Saudi Arabia, a country with which Israel does not even have official diplomatic relations, played a role in the response to the Iranian attack: according to the Wall Street Journal shared intelligence information with the United States and Israel that was then crucial in preparing for the attack. Others speculate that it also hosted US air defense systems, which contributed to the downing of Iranian vehicles, but there is no confirmed information on this.

The fact that, again according to the Wall Street Journalabout half of the ballistic missiles launched by Iran either failed to launch or fell on their own before reaching the target.

The formation of this alliance is a goal that the United States has been working towards for years. Above all because, while the support of Western allies such as the United States and the United Kingdom (France also contributed to the shooting down of some drones) can be taken for granted, the same is not true for countries such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The main point of this alliance is that, rather than being pro-Israel, it is anti-Iran. As he said to Wall Street Journal Steven Cook, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Arab governments in the region may hate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but they hate the government of Iran even more.

An anti-Israel demonstration in front of the British embassy in Tehran, Iran (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

The main aim of the Sunni Arab countries that defended Israel on Saturday night was not so much to avoid damage to Israeli infrastructure, but to counter Iran’s offensive capabilities in the region, and to demonstrate that external attacks by Shiite Iran they can be canceled by the intervention of Sunni Arab countries (Shiism and Sunnism are the two main orientations of Islam). Saudi Arabia, in particular, is Iran’s main regional rival, while Jordan has long felt threatened by the presence of pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria.

– Read also: Why Sunnis and Shiites argue

The United States has long sought to foster greater integration between Israeli defense systems and those of Arab countries in an anti-Iranian perspective, and Saturday night’s actions show that their efforts have been successful.

Two things above all were important: first of all the “political détente” brought by the so-called “Abraham Accords”, i.e. those agreements with which starting from 2020 four Arab countries (United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan) normalized their relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia had not yet done so, but promising negotiations were underway before the war in Gaza began.

Secondly, the United States has been working for years to bring Israel and the Arab countries of the region closer together also from the point of view of military cooperation. In 2022, the Defense Department moved management of military relations with Israel from the European Command to the Central Command, known as Centcom, which also includes other Middle Eastern countries. These terms (“European Command”, “Centcom”) refer to the different geographical divisions through which the American armed forces divide military competences. The European Command deals with European affairs, Centcom deals with the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia (according to a dated conception according to which this area would be the “center” of the geographical map).

By inserting the management of military relations with Israel into Centcom – and therefore ensuring that the same officers who dealt with the Middle East also began to deal with Israel – the United States wanted to promote Israel’s military integration with the rest of the countries of the region, which paid off on Saturday night.

Now one of the problems is understanding what will happen if what has so far been a back and forth between two rival countries (Israel killed an Iranian general, Iran responded with a large, choreographed and all in all inconclusive launch of drones and missiles) would turn into a broader conflict involving the entire region. Saturday’s attack was Iran’s first direct attack on Israel, and could have far-reaching consequences across the region.

Also for this reason, just like the United States, the Arab countries are now also trying to avoid an increase in the level of conflict and retaliation, to avoid being dragged into a regional war in which they would find themselves in an extremely uncomfortable position.

– Read also: How will Israel respond to Iran’s attack?

Furthermore, participation in this informal alliance could create problems for the participating Arab governments, especially in this period of war in the Gaza Strip.

Particularly in Jordan, where a fifth of the population is Palestinian (2.3 million people), since the beginning of the war many people have protested against the government because it is not doing enough for the Palestinian cause. In this context, the news that Jordan helped shoot down Iranian drones aimed at Israel was not taken well. Jordanian authorities said they shot down the Iranian drones not to defend Israel, but to preserve their own airspace. Despite this, they began to circulate on social media https://twitter.com/BelalNezar/status/1779296689028735304 showing Abdallah II, the Jordanian king, wearing the uniform of the Israeli army.

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