Michael Makovsky
An obscure bureaucratic change enabled the extremely successful, coordinated defense of Israel against the recent Iranian attack. President Donald Trump’s January 2021 decision to transfer Israel to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) ensured the unprecedented Israeli-American-British-Arab collaboration that repelled 99 percent of Iran’s missiles and drones.
Prior to 2021, Israel was assigned to the U.S. European Command’s (EUCOM) area of responsibility. Based on geography and threats, Israel belonged to CENTCOM, the U.S. military’s Middle East command. Arab countries, however, did not want to be part of a forum with Israel, and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) leaders were satisfied and didn’t request a CENTCOM transfer. Until the last decade, the CENTCOM commander didn’t generally travel to Israel, his EUCOM counterpart’s turf, though the two American commanders began to meet periodically with the Israeli military chief.
As Israel’s relationships with Arab states began to warm quietly, a Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) 2018 report presciently argued that placing Israel within the U.S. combatant command responsible for the geographic region that Israel actually inhabits, the Middle East, would “enable improved strategic and operational coordination among the United States, Israel and our Arab partners throughout the region against Iran and other serious shared threats.” It repeated a similar argument in 2020.
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