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How the U.S. Forged a Fragile Middle Eastern Alliance to Repel Iran's Attack on Israel
(Wall Street Journal) David S. Cloud - Gulf countries feared being seen as coming to Israel's aid at a time when relations are badly strained by the war in Gaza and many details about the role played by Saudi Arabia and other key Arab governments are being closely held. Israeli and U.S. forces were able to intercept most of the Iranian drones and missiles in part because Sunni Arab countries quietly passed along intelligence about Tehran's attack plans, opened their airspace to warplanes, shared radar tracking information or, in some cases, supplied their own forces to help, officials said. In March 2022, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, then the top U.S. commander in the region, convened a secret meeting of top military officials from Israel and Arab countries to explore how they could coordinate against Iran's growing missile and drone capabilities. The talks, held at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, marked the first time that ranking Israeli and Arab officers met under U.S. military auspices to discuss countering Iran. Cooperation between Israel and Arab government on air defense with the U.S. as an intermediary has become common, even with Saudi Arabia, which still hasn't established diplomatic relations with Israel. In recent weeks, in talks with the U.S., the UAE and Saudi Arabia agreed privately to share intelligence, while Jordan said it would allow use of its airspace by U.S. and other countries' warplanes and use its own aircraft to assist in intercepting Iranian missiles and drones. Two days before the attack, Iranian officials briefed counterparts from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries on the outlines and timing of their plan for the large-scale strikes on Israel so that those countries could safeguard airspace. The information was passed along to the U.S., giving Washington and Israel crucial advance warning. The Pentagon took the lead in coordinating defensive measures between Israel and Arab governments, according to a senior Israeli official. Arab countries offered help in defending against the Iranian attacks because they saw the benefits of cooperating with the U.S. and Israel, as long as it remained low profile, said Yasmine Farouk, a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Gulf countries know they still don't have the same level of support that Israel gets from the United States and see what they did [Saturday] as a way of getting it in the future." The Iranian missiles and drones were tracked from the moment they were launched by early warning radars in Persian Gulf countries linked to the U.S. operations center in Qatar, which transmitted the information to fighters jets from several countries in the airspace over Jordan and other countries, as well as to warships at sea and missile-defense batteries in Israel.