Israel And UAE Coordinate Iran Strategy Approach To US

The United Arab Emirates and Israel are coordinating appeals to the US to formulate a new security strategy for the Middle East in case of a nuclear deal with Iran.

In a report Monday, Bloomberg cited “five people familiar with the matter” that the UAE and Israel believe they can use the Ukraine crisis and rising oil prices to extract concessions from Washington over intelligence and defense they were previously denied.

The UAE has bought billions of advanced weapons from the US, with one deal alone under the Trump administration put at $23.5 billion. US annual military aid to Israel is over $3.5 billion.

The two countries, which established diplomatic relations in 2020, have both received criticism in the US for equivocating over the Russia intervention in Ukraine, with Israeli premier Naftali Bennett heading to Moscow to mediate and the UAE abstaining on UN votes.

Bloomberg reported the two are coordinating in the belief that the situation is favorable to a shared approach towards the US, arguing that Iran’s foreign exchange income, and therefore its defense capacity, would be boosted if US sanctions are eased with a revived nuclear agreement.

According to the report, a senior Biden administration official said there were discussions about Iran, but did not confirm any commitment to a new plan. Iran’s Sunday missile attack at Erbil, northern Iraq, in response to an Israeli air strike a week earlier that killed two Iranian officers in Damacus, highlighted continued region tensions.