Last month, the Pentagon announced its withdrawal of Patriot missiles from Saudi Arabia, where they had been positioned in 2019 following a series of Iranian rocket and drone attacks. In nearby Iraq, Tehran has directed over 40 rocket attacks at American targets—which do not have adequate anti-missile systems—over the last twelve months. John Hannah and Jacob Nagel argue that the U.S. should look to Israel for the technology that will defend American servicemen against the Islamic Republic’s arsenal:

[U]ntil very recently, the only real option available to U.S. personnel in Iraq who received warning of incoming missiles or rockets was to take cover and pray that their positions did not suffer a direct hit. Unfortunately, even the deployment of Patriots is, at best, a partial solution to the Iranian threat.

A better short-term solution would ideally supplement Patriots with a mixture of two existing Israeli air-defense systems. The first and most urgently needed is Iron Dome, developed by the Israeli company Rafael, and now co-produced with the American defense firm Raytheon. . . . Iron Dome’s interception rate is close to 90 percent, making it by an order of magnitude the most battle-tested and successful missile-defense system in the world.

The second Israeli technology that the U.S. should give serious consideration to is the Skyceptor missile from Rafael and Raytheon. Based on the Stunner interceptor developed for Israel’s David’s Sling missile-defense system, Skyceptor can be fired from Patriots and was specifically designed to intercept not only ballistic missiles but also low altitude, maneuverable cruise missiles and drones, [both of which have been used repeatedly by Iran].

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”