During the Iranian attack last Saturday, Jordanian jets took to the skies to shoot down munitions aimed at Israel, bringing into stark relief the contradictions in the country’s foreign policy. Lahav Harkov explains:

If anyone thought Jordan’s part in intercepting drones Iran launched at Israel on the weekend marked a turning point in the Hashemite kingdom’s relations with the Jewish state, the Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi immediately tried to dispel that notion, insisting in media interviews that Israel was still the real problem.

Leading figures in Jordan have for months been leveling harsh criticism on Israel and Amman called off an energy and water deal in response to the war in Gaza, amid pressure from a population that has largely been unsupportive of relations between the countries since they signed an agreement in 1994.

The kingdom realizes, however, that it is dependent on Israel and the U.S. for its own security—and, like any country, doesn’t relish its airspace being violated by a hostile power. And there is no doubt that is what Iran is:

Iran has long worked to gain a foothold in Jordan and to undermine the stability of its monarchy. Israel’s 300 km-border with Jordan is its longest frontier, such that a stronger Iranian or Iran-backed presence would pose a serious threat to the Jewish state. . . . A week before the missile and drone attack on Israel, Iranian media reported that Hizballah is ready to arm 12,000 “Islamist resistance” fighters in Jordan to overthrow the monarchy.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.