Iran is Betting on an Arab Domino Effect

Arab governments are for the most part profoundly suspicious of each other yet nowadays quite trusting of Israel in many respects. This is the crux of forming a Middle Eastern defense alliance. Arab governments don’t mind secretly aligning with Israel but balk at aligning with each other. The problem in military terms is that Iran is betting on an Arab domino effect whereby Iran can pick off one major Arab country after the other from east to west. What is necessary rather is that all Arab members of a Middle East defense alliance dispatch much of their military forces to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states once it is clear that war will break out or once war has unexpectedly broken out. Picking off one major Arab country one by one is very convenient for the Iranians and their goal is clear: to reach the Atlantic Ocean. It is crucial that Iran is stopped already in Saudi Arabia and this requires major Arab redeployment there once war is looming or has already broken out by surprise. There is a need for very close strategic and tactical coordination within a predominantly Arab Middle Eastern defense alliance in which Israel, the US and possibly Turkey and Azerbaijan would also be members. There is furthermore the possibility that Iran will bypass the Gulf states and instead invade Jordan through Iraq. Of course Israel is highly strategic as it is the bottleneck to North Africa, yet it is crucial for all threatened MENA states that an Iranian invasion is halted in its tracks. Yes, America needs to commit to membership in a Middle Eastern defense alliance alongside Israel, yet this must be conditional on Arab states genuinely committing to stopping an Iranian invasion at the earliest possible temporal and spatial stage.