Two weeks ago, Israel canceled a visit by Jordan’s Crown Prince Hussein to the Temple Mount after he sought to come with a large entourage of heavily armed guards. His father, King Abdullah, responded by closing his country’s airspace to Prime Minister Netanyahu, who consequently had to reschedule a planned trip to the United Arab Emirates. Caroline Glick explains the underlying reasons for this spat:

One of the regional developments that keep Abdullah up at night is the still-unofficial alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Abdullah lives in fear that in exchange for Riyadh’s official normalization of ties, Israel will provide the Saudis with a formal role in managing the mosques on the Temple Mount at Jordan’s expense. For its part, as the current custodian of the mosques on the Temple Mount, Jordan has torpedoed every Israeli effort to stabilize the situation at the holy site.

Jordan’s effective irrelevance in a post-Arab-Israeli-conflict Middle East, where Abraham Accords members and supporters dominate the economic and strategic landscape presents Jordan with a choice between two paths. It can continue to . . . insist that all [further] normalization [with Jerusalem] must be contingent on an Israeli surrender of Judea, Samaria, and northern, eastern, and southern Jerusalem—including the Temple Mount. If it does this it will continue to stand at the sidelines—in crushing poverty—as Israel and other Arab states gallop towards unprecedented prosperity and joint development.

Abdullah’s second option is to follow the Egyptian president Abdelfattah el-Sissi’s lead and make his country an adjunct member of the Abraham Accords. Among other things, he can agree to a major expansion of the industrial parks on both sides of the Jordan River, in keeping with the Trump administration’s vision for economic peace. Such a move would, in short order, create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Jordanians, Palestinians, and Israelis and draw billions of dollars in foreign investment to all sides.

The Mossad’s heist of a vast Iranian nuclear archive in 2018 provided abundant evidence that Tehran was not adhering to its commitments; it also provided an enormous amount of actionable intelligence. Two years later, Israel responded to international inspectors’ condemnation of the Islamic Republic’s violations by using this intelligence to launch a spectacular campaign of sabotage—a campaign that is the subject of Target Tehran, by Yonah Jeremy Bob and Ilan Evyatar. David Adesnik writes:

The question that remains open at the conclusion of Target Tehran is whether the Mossad’s tactical wizardry adds up to strategic success in the shadow war with Iran. The authors give a very respectful hearing to skeptics—such as the former Mossad director Tamir Pardo—who believe the country should have embraced the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Bob and Evyatar reject that position, arguing that covert action has proven itself the best way to slow down the nuclear program. They acknowledge, however, that the clerical regime remains fully determined to reach the nuclear threshold. “The Mossad’s secret war, in other words, is not over. Indeed, it may never end,” they write.

Which brings us back to Joe Biden. The clerical regime was headed over a financial cliff when Biden took office, thanks to the reimposition of sanctions after Washington withdrew from the nuclear deal. The billions flowing into Iran on Biden’s watch have made it that much easier for the regime to rebuild whatever Mossad destroys in addition to weathering nationwide protests on behalf of women, life, and freedom. Until Washington and Jerusalem get on the same page—and stay there—Tehran’s nuclear ambitions will remain an affordable luxury for a dictatorship at war with its citizens.