With the assassination by Israel of Iran’s top nuclear warhead designer, the Middle East is promising to complicate Joe Biden’s job from day one. President-elect Biden knows the region well, but if I had one piece of advice for him, it would be this: This is not the Middle East you left four years ago.
The best way for Biden to appreciate the new Middle East is to study what happened in the early hours of Sept. 14, 2019 – when the Iranian Air Force launched 20 drones and precision-guided cruise missiles at Abqaiq, one of Saudi Arabia’s most important oil fields and processing centers, causing huge damage. It was a seminal event.
The Iranian drones and cruise missiles flew so low and with such stealth that neither their takeoff nor their impending attack was detected in time by Saudi or U.S. radar. Israeli military analysts, who were stunned by the capabilities the Iranians displayed, argued that this surprise attack was the Middle East’s “Pearl Harbor.”
They were right. The Middle East was reshaped by this Iranian precision missile strike, by President Donald Trump’s response and by the response of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to Trump’s response.
A lot of people missed it, so let’s go to the videotape.