លោក Biden ធ្វើដំណើរទៅកាន់មជ្ឈិមបូព៌ាដ៏គួរឱ្យភ័យខ្លាច

Both Israel and Saudi Arabia want a stronger deterrence stance on Iran.

Iran Talks Shift to Deterrence 

U.S. President Joe Biden is off to Israel and Saudi Arabia next week, and by the administration’s own account, the talks for a new Iran nuclear deal are not going too well. U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley said earlier this week that Tehran is much closer to having enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, with the breakout time down possibly to as little as a week.

That has unnerved both Israel—which is already set for new elections in November—and Saudi Arabia, which both fear a resurgent Iran undermining their security. And ahead of Biden’s visit, the two American partners, which are edging closer to an Abraham Accords-like normalization first initiated by the Trump administration, are worried by the uptick in Iran adding more centrifuges while nuclear diplomacy collapses.

But either way, the name of the game for the Israelis, Biden’s first stop, is deterrence. Though most bilateral and multilateral defense ties in the Middle East are fairly nascent, at best, with no NATO standards for interoperability, a senior Israeli official said on Wednesday that the United States was working on a plan to better integrate regional air and missile defenses—something that already has backing in Congress—given Iran’s progress in developing medium- and long-range ballistic missiles.

“It’s not a plan B,” the senior Israeli official said, speaking anonymously according to ground rules set by the Israeli government. “Because even if there’s a new nuclear deal with Iran, it does not cover what Iran is doing in the region.” Israel and the Arab countries will still have to deal with Iranian proxies, missiles, drones—and potentially, they worry, an injection of more cash into Iran’s coffers.

“Iran has to see facing it a credible deterrent,” the official said. “They have to realize that if they cross certain lines and take certain risks, there would be consequences.