Jared Szuba
As the Biden administration touts a bilateral deal with Saudi Arabia linked to a historic normalization with Israel, Pentagon officials are working behind the scenes to firm up what they hope will be a cornerstone of Washington’s broader Middle East strategy for years to come.
Senior Pentagon officials sat down with Arab military brass in Riyadh on Wednesday to discuss expanding nascent Middle East air and naval defense coalitions in hopes of eventually containing Iran’s missile and drone overmatch over its neighbors.
The department’s top Middle East policy chief, Dan Shapiro, along with officials from CENTCOM and the Joint Staff, are leading the discussions with military representatives from all five Gulf Cooperation Council countries for the second annual round of defense working group meetings in the Saudi capital.
Biden administration officials aim to persuade Arab defense chiefs to expand their air defense radar arrays and share intelligence in order to better detect and shoot down Iranian-made projectiles which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has proliferated to militias across the region.
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