Reuel Marc Gerecht
WSJ, Mar. 5, 2025
“It’s hard to imagine the Turkish air force wanting to duel with better-trained and -equipped Israeli pilots.”
Defense Department nominee Elbridge Colby has contended that the U.S. can do less in the Middle East because Israel can do more if properly armed. Can we imagine an Israeli-Sunni Arab alliance—the Abraham Accords with muscle—that checks Shiite Iran in the Persian Gulf? The Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran even imagines such an entente including Sunni Turkey, standing as an Ottoman wall against the Persians and reinforced with Israeli air power.
None of this makes sense. It ignores Israel’s limitations and exaggerates its strength. Further, the Abraham Accords won’t add Saudi Arabia as a signatory, let alone become a foundation for an anti-Iran alliance, unless America first defeats the Islamic Republic. And Israeli military action against Iran without substantial U.S. participation would likely trigger a military conflict that Washington would be hard-pressed to avoid.
Despite a recurring desire to do less in the Middle East, America hasn’t really scaled down in the region since it ramped up its presence in the 1950s. This is because of an enduring reality that is still likely to limit even President Trump: the region remains too important to leave to the natives. The Middle East is still the indispensable source of the oil that fuels most of the world’s big economies. U.S. production can’t make it irrelevant even if kicked into high gear.
For all its military prowess, Jerusalem can’t defend the Persian Gulf or defeat its main threat—Iran. Israel may not be able to disable the clerical regime’s underground nuclear-weapons sites—the math and the pressure waves would have to be just right with F-16s carrying 5,000-pound bombs.
There is much Israel can do, especially with U.S. aid. Jerusalem certainly can stop Iran’s proxies in the Levant or halt a more ambitious Islamic Republic moving westward through Iraq into Jordan. (The Hashemite monarchy, which runs an effective domestic intelligence service, can handle Iranian clandestine activity inside the kingdom.) ….SOURCE