A bipartisan slate of US lawmakers have launched a bill that would establish an “integrated air and missile defence capability” for the United States, Israel and Arab countries in a bid to deter Iran.
The bipartisan group of senators and House of Representative members was announced last week
Senate and House members of the Abraham Accords Caucus said the “DEFEND Act” was a means of advancing the normalisation agreements between Israel and four Arab countries.
“The full potential of the Abraham Accords, economic cooperation, education exchanges, trade agreements between Israel and our Middle Eastern partners, cannot be achieved without a commitment to collective security,” said Joni Ernst, a Republican senator from Iowa who is the lead co-sponsor of the bill with Jacky Rosen, a Nevada Jewish Democrat senator.
“America’s role in activating and networking our allies and partners in the Middle East must evolve as violent extremists, like Iran, change their tactics and onboard new systems capable of catastrophic damage against civilian targets.”
It’s not clear from the bill how formal the arrangement would be.
The bill tasks the secretary of defence with establishing an “architecture” and “acquisition approach” for an “integrated air and missile defence system” to counter threats from Iran.
Israel has traditionally been wary of formal defence pacts with even its closest allies, wishing to preserve its right to act unilaterally. However, Israeli officials have in recent years signalled that less formal arrangements that preserve Israel’s agency are acceptable.
The bill also designates as participants in the arrangement the four countries signed onto the Abraham Accords — Morocco, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — as well as countries that still have no relations with Israel, including Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
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Saudi Arabia looks closer than ever to formalising what has been for years a secret relationship with Israel, and reportedly are near an agreement that would allow Israeli aircraft to fly through Saudi air space.
But Iraq is openly hostile to Israel.
Ernst said that the United States should coax those countries into participation.
She noted that the U.S. consulate in Erbil, Iraq, came under drone attack last Wednesday, an area that has in the past come under fire from Iran and its proxies.
“We understand they are not part of the Abraham Accords,” she said of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, “but it is extremely important that we continue the discussions with them as well as wrap them into this agreement as part of the DEFEND act. We have to continue those conversations with them.”
