During his visit to the Middle East last month, President Biden attended a summit of what has come to be known as the I2U2: a four-way forum involving Jerusalem, New Delhi, Washington, and Abu Dhabi. Dov Zakheim presents the historical background of the relations of each country with the others, and then looks to the future:

This new quad evokes parallels to the Indo-Pacific quad consisting of the U.S., India, Japan, and Australia. . . . In particular, like the Indo-Pacific quad, I2U2 is not a military alliance, nor does it explicitly target any particular country.

Indeed, the four partners of I2U2 do not have a common adversary. Whereas the U.S. and Israel see Iran as a major threat—an existential threat in Israel’s case—the UAE maintains trade and diplomatic ties with Iran while India is ambivalent about Iran.

India’s relationship with Iran is cordial but complicated. India stopped importing Iranian oil in 2019 due to America’s “maximal sanctions” on Tehran. Iran also resents India’s close ties with Israel, while India is uneasy about the implications of the recently finalized Iran-China strategic partnership, which has a significant military component. India also is concerned about Iranian support for the Houthis [in Yemen], given its close ties to both the Emirates and the Saudis, who have been the targets of Houthi missile attacks.

At the I2U2 summit, the four countries committed to new cooperation in high-tech, initially on clean energy and food security. At least for the foreseeable future, coordinated military partnership, as opposed to bilateral arrangements between any two of the four countries, is off the table. Nevertheless, . . . the new I2U2 quad may see a tighter military partnership with the passage of time—especially if, as many anticipate, Iran will develop a nuclear bomb that will most certainly destabilize the region.

Last week, Jordanian police arrested sixteen members of the country’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood for acquiring explosives, trying to manufacture drones, and planning rocket attacks. The cell was likely working in coordination with Hamas (the Palestinian offshoot of the Brotherhood) and Hizballah, and perhaps receiving funding from Iran. Ghaith al-Omari provides some background:

The Brotherhood has been active in Jordan since the 1940s, and its relations with the government remained largely cooperative for decades even as other political parties were banned in the 1950s. In exchange, the Brotherhood usually (but not always) supported the palace’s foreign policy and security measures, particularly against Communist and socialist parties.

Relations became more adversarial near the turn of the century after the Brotherhood vociferously opposed the 1994 peace treaty with Israel. The Arab Spring movement that emerged in 2011 saw further deterioration. Unlike other states in the region, however, Jordan did not completely crack down on the MB, instead seeking to limit its influence.

Yet the current Gaza war has seen another escalation, with the MB repeatedly accusing the government of cooperating with Israel and not doing enough to support the Palestinians.

Jordanian security circles are particularly worried about the MB’s vocal wartime identification with Hamas, an organization that was considered such a grave security threat that it was expelled from the kingdom in 1999. The sentiment among many Jordanian officials is that the previous lenient approach failed to change the MB’s behavior, emboldening the group instead.