Follow us on social

Steven_l._basham_visit_to_israel_march_2021._iv

Wait, is there really a new US-led air defense alliance in the Middle East?

Israel claims a formal pact with Arab states has already stopped Iranian attacks. But congressional sources aren’t so sure.

Analysis | Reporting | Middle East

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz surprised observers last week when he announced that Israel and several Arab countries had joined a U.S.-led air defense alliance aimed at countering Iran. 

If Gantz can be taken at his word, this “Middle East Air Defense Alliance” (MEAD) isn’t particularly new. In fact, he said it has already thwarted multiple Iranian attacks, possibly dating back to last year.

The announcement may have also been news to Congress. Just two weeks before Gantz’s comments, members of the House and Senate introduced a bill calling for something that sounds a lot like the MEAD. And sources on Capitol Hill told Responsible Statecraft that there is currently only loose “coordination” on air defense in the region, suggesting a disconnect between Washington and Tel Aviv on what’s actually happening on the ground.

One thing is clear amid this confusion: If the MEAD does exist, none of its other members are as zealous as Israel about promoting it. No U.S. sources have confirmed its existence, and the names of Arab participants have not been made public (though many assume it could include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Jordan, all of which reportedly took part in a high-level military meeting with the United States and Israel in March).

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, said Gantz’s announcement might be an “information management strategy” ahead of President Joe Biden's trip to the Middle East next month.

“It could well be the case that it's an attempt also by the Israelis to create narratives around the idea of regional cooperation with Arab Gulf countries, such as the UAE and potentially Saudi Arabia, given that they feel that they share a common threat from Iran,” said Coates Ulrichsen.

Pentagon spokesperson Major Rob Lodewick told Responsible Statecraft that the DoD is “well aware” of Gantz’s announcement but declined to weigh in on it directly. “DoD’s commitment to increasing regional cooperation against shared threats emanating from Iran is nothing new,” said Lodewick in an email, adding that “networked security cooperation remains a high priority.”

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), one of the bill’s cosponsors in the House, said in an email that “integrated air defense architecture that protects civilians and infrastructure is overdue” in light of Iranian attacks. “​​I am confident that this bicameral, bipartisan bill will protect US security interests and will strive to preserve peace in the Middle East,” Bacon wrote without directly acknowledging Gantz’s claims.

Responsible Statecraft also reached out to the White House, Israel’s Ministry of Defense, and sixteen additional members of Congress, including the other nine cosponsors of the bill, known as the DEFENSE Act. None responded to questions about the MEAD’s existence or its supposed operational goals.

“Middle East NATO” and its discontents

If MEAD is real, it’s just the latest in a long line of U.S.-led attempts to build a formal military alliance in the Middle East. The most recent try came in 2017 when then-President Donald Trump launched the Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA), which aimed to bring the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jordan, Egypt and the United States under the same security umbrella.

In the end, MESA hit up against the same set of obstacles that any future air defense alliance might face. Notably, potential participants have diverse security interests that are sometimes at odds. “These countries have different threat perceptions of Iran,” said Giorgio Cafiero of Gulf State Analytics, adding that even willing countries “cannot easily integrate their military platforms and technology.”

Israeli participation adds further complications. As Cafiero noted, many Arab states are unwilling to publicly work with Israel. Prominent GCC members like Oman and Kuwait have never had official relations with Tel Aviv, and Iraq recently passed a law that could lead to life imprisonment for anyone who promotes normalization with Israel.

Some are wary of how news of an alliance would be received in Tehran, especially as Iraq continues its efforts to restart direct talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Qatar is also keen to keep things cordial in the region as it prepares to host diplomats from the U.S. and Iran for nuclear talks. 

“​​I think that the concern is the way it's being presented as something that is designed to deal with Iran, to confront Iran,” said Barbara Slavin of the Atlantic Council, arguing such a provocative framing isn’t “particularly wise.”

“But on the other hand, it is reality,” Slavin continued. “That's what brings these countries together. It's not love for the Palestinian cause. It's fear of Iran.”

America is back?

Even if the MEAD announcement was an exaggeration, many in Washington are champing at the bit to increase security cooperation in the Middle East. Exhibit A for this trend is the above-mentioned DEFENSE Act.

The bill’s supporters say they want to incorporate it into the 2023 defense budget, which is currently making its way through committee mark-ups in the House and Senate. If they succeed in this effort, the proposal may not end up facing much scrutiny. After all, last year’s defense spending bill stretched to over 900 pages, leaving ample room for things to slip through the cracks. But, given the bill’s potential effects on U.S. policy, it’s worth taking a closer look.

The proposal’s backers say an air defense alliance is key to deterring Iranian aggression and building on the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries. But detractors worry that it could force the United States to maintain a major military presence in the region, increasing the risk that Washington gets drawn into regional disputes. After all, the plan calls for defending against Iran and its regional partners, which are spread  across Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.

The bill also raises questions on the domestic front. Saudi Arabia would be a key member of any defense alliance in the region, but the powerful monarchy’s brand has taken major hits in recent years among members of Congress and activists in the U.S. As rumors swirled in recent weeks that Biden plans to offer “security guarantees” to Riyadh, Sarah Leah Whitson of DAWN called it a “humiliating capitulation.”

“Biden’s promised recalibration of America’s decades of disastrous support for Saudi Arabia’s government is mutating into an unprecedented deepening of U.S. obligations,” Whitson wrote in the American Prospect.

Despite the bad optics, Biden seems determined to respond to accusations that the United States is withdrawing from the region. With rising oil prices and waning chances of reviving the Iran nuclear deal, the White House may be trying to reassure its partners as they get ready for a “more insecure” post-JCPOA world, according to Coates Ulrichsen.

But for many observers, the only sustainable path to security in the region is through a return to the JCPOA, followed by further rounds of regional diplomacy.

“The JCPOA, in my view, is the only realistic way to prevent nuclear brinkmanship from spiraling out of control,” said Cafiero, adding that MEAD-style defense alliances will never be enough to “guarantee the safety of these countries from Iran surrogate operations.”

“It is through diplomacy with Tehran that countries in the region can find ways to lower the temperatures and decrease friction with the Islamic Republic and find some ways to stabilize their relationships with Iran,” he said. “And I believe the U.S. should be encouraging regional actors to do so.”


Lt. Gen. Steven L. Basham, Deputy Commander of USAFE-AFARICA (U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa) and Commander of the JTFI (Joint Task Force Israel), visitig in Israel, as the official guest of Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, Head of the IDF Operations Directorate. March 2021. (Israeli Defense Forces/public domain/Flickr)
Analysis | Reporting | Middle East
President Trump with reporters
Top photo credit: President Donald Trump speaks with members of the media at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on Sunday, September 7, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

Is Israel forcing Trump to be the capitulator in chief?

Middle East

President Donald Trump told reporters outside a Washington restaurant Tuesday evening that he is deeply displeased with Israel’s bombardment of Qatar, a close U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf that, at Washington’s request, has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012.

“I am not thrilled about it. I am not thrilled about the whole situation,” Trump said, denying that Israel had given him advance notice. “I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect of it,” he continued. “We’ve got to get the hostages back. But I was very unhappy with the way that went down.”

keep readingShow less
Europe Ukraine
Top image credit: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, President of Ukraine, Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the UK, and Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland, emerge from St. Mary's Palace for a press conference as part of the Coalition of the Willing meeting in Kiev, May 10 2025, Kay Nietfeld/dpa via Reuters Connect

Is Europe deliberately sabotaging Ukraine War negotiations?

Europe

After last week’s meeting of the “coalition of the willing” in Paris, 26 countries have supposedly agreed to contribute — in some fashion — to a military force that would be deployed on Ukrainian soil after hostilities have concluded.

Three weeks prior, at the Anchorage leaders’ summit press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Ukraine’s security should be ensured as part of any negotiated settlement. But Russian officials have continued to reiterate that this cannot take the form of Western combat forces stationed in Ukraine. In the wake of last week’s meeting, Putin has upped the ante by declaring that any such troops would be legitimate targets for the Russian military.

keep readingShow less
After bombing, time to demystify the 'Qatar lobby'
Top photo credit: The Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, is standing third from the left in the front row, alongside the Minister of Culture of Qatar, Abdulrahman bin Hamad bin Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, who is at the center, and the Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth of Oman, Sayyid Theyazin bin Haitham Al Said, who is second from the right in Doha, Qatar, on May 9, 2024. (Photo by Noushad Thekkayil/NurPhoto)

After bombing, time to demystify the 'Qatar lobby'

Middle East

On Tuesday, Israel bombed Doha, killing at least five Hamas staffers and a member of Qatari security. Israeli officials initially claimed the US green-lit the operation, despite Qatar hosting the largest U.S. military in the region.

The White House has since contradicted that version of events, saying the White House was given notice “just before” the bombing and claiming the strike was an “unfortunate" attack that "could serve as an opportunity for peace.”

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.