On Saturday, an attack drone launched by Iran-backed Houthi guerrillas in Yemen struck a commercial tanker in the Red Sea, and another drone—thought to have been launched from Iran itself—hit a chemical tanker off the Indian coast. Both ships’ crews, none of whom were injured, were made up mostly of Indian citizens. India has since dispatched several naval vessels to protect its sea lanes. Meanwhile, there was an explosion near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday. These events suggest that, despite its history of cordial relations with Iran, the world’s largest democracy has reason to see Tehran’s regional aggression as a threat to its own security. And this is happening at a time when Israel and India have been growing closer.

Yeshaya Rosenman observes that Indian popular opinion is moving in the same direction:

Never before October 8 had Israel been flooded with so many Indian reporters. Of the few thousand foreign journalists who rushed to Israel to cover the war, over a hundred arrived from India, including many of the most famous faces of Indian media. . . . Even more unusual than the sheer magnitude of Indian-focused coverage is the fact that Indian media were staunchly supportive of Israel.

Indian Muslims number an estimated 200 million, roughly 15 percent of the 1.4 billion Indians. The majority are not radical. . . . However, the October 28 televised speech of the Hamas leader, Khaled Mashal, to a Jamaat-e-Islami (India’s Muslim Brotherhood) rally was an alarming development. The rally was part of a campaign titled “Uproot Hindutva and Apartheid Zionism.” Hindutva, the ideology of Hindu nationalists—here just a code word for Hindus—was equated with Zionism by Muslim Brotherhood leaders in a candid attempt to export Hamas ideology and methods to India.

Yesterday I saw an unconfirmed report that the Biden administration has offered Israel a massive arms deal in exchange for a promise not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if the report is incorrect, there is plenty of other evidence that the White House has been trying to dissuade Jerusalem from mounting such an attack. The thinking behind this pressure is hard to fathom, as there is little Israel could do that would better serve American interests in the Middle East than putting some distance between the ayatollahs and nuclear weapons. Aaron MacLean explains why this is so, in the context of a broader discussion of strategic priorities in the Middle East and elsewhere:

If the Iran issue were satisfactorily adjusted in the direction of the American interest, the question of Israel’s security would become more manageable overnight. If a network of American partners enjoyed security against state predation, the proactive suppression of militarily less serious threats like Islamic State would be more easily organized—and indeed, such partners would be less vulnerable to the manipulation of powers external to the region.

[The Biden administration’s] commitment to escalation avoidance has had the odd effect of making the security situation in the region look a great deal as it would if America had actually withdrawn [from the Middle East].

Alternatively, we could project competence by effectively backing our Middle East partners in their competitions against their enemies, who are also our enemies, by ensuring a favorable overall balance of power in the region by means of our partnership network, and by preventing Iran from achieving nuclear status—even if it courts escalation with Iran in the shorter run.