NBC NEWS
Since Iran’s unprecedented retaliatory attack against Israel was thwarted over the weekend with the help of the United States and its Middle Eastern allies, the Biden administration has crowed that the “coalition” averted a regional war.
An Israeli response, however, would test the durability of an informal coalition of awkward bedfellows including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, whose recent cooperation against Iran has the potential to be damaging on the home front, analysts say.
“Those Arab countries are in a very critical situation,” said Oraib Al Rantawi, director of the Al Quds Center for Political Studies, a think tank based in Jordan’s capital, Amman. “There is no easy position to take for all of them, especially Jordan, which for geopolitical reasons has found itself trapped between two troublemakers — Iran and Israel.”
After Iran’s barrage of more than 300 missiles and drones did limited damage, as many of them were shot down by American, British, Israeli and Jordanian forces, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday that the coordinated operation was “an extraordinary military success,” that sent “a strong message about where Israel is in the region versus where Iran is in the region, which is increasingly isolated.”
But there was no such boasting from America’s partners in the Middle East, where even acknowledgement of the weekend’s events was muted.
