As discussions of a nuclear agreement with Iran continue, U.S. relations with its Middle Eastern allies may be fraying. Michael Doran assesses Israeli leaders’ recent protests against Biden’s maneuvering; a misbegotten attempt by the White House to shore up support in Saudi Arabia; and the significance of Iran’s recent hostage release—an attempt to pave the way toward a deal. He concludes that “any expectations that the agreement will moderate the regime are a pipe dream.”

As the parties to the Iranian nuclear deal iron out its final details, unease in Jerusalem grows. Barak Ravid of Axios reported last week that, in response to an Iranian demand, President Biden was considering reversing President Trump’s designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization. The news elicited a storm of protests from Israel, including from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. “Unfortunately,” Bennett wrote in a statement released on his Telegram channel, “we see the determination [of the Americans] to sign the nuclear deal with Iran at almost any cost, including saying of the world’s largest terrorist organization that it is not a terrorist organization. But this cost is too high.”

Does this statement mark a turning point in relations between the Bennett government and the Biden administration? In general, this Israeli government has bent over backwards to avoid publicly attacking Biden’s Iran policy. In private, it has made its feelings known, albeit diplomatically. For example, last December, when Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz came to Washington, he proposed an alternative policy. “What I told them,” Gantz explained to a group of Israeli journalists, “was that Iran has bad cards [to play] at the moment, and the economic situation there is difficult. Therefore, there is room for international pressure—political, economic, and also military—so that Iran can stop its fantasies about the nuclear program.”

Applying pressure across all fronts simultaneously to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear program—sound familiar? It should. Under the name “maximum pressure” President Donald Trump adopted precisely that policy. But in Israel today “maximum pressure” is the approach that dare not speak its name, because Team Biden will take offense.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.