Last month, a terrorist attack occurred in the Jordanian city of Karak, leaving fifteen dead. It now seems that the perpetrators belonged to a cell of Islamic State; in the subsequent crackdown, Jordan uncovered a fairly extensive network affiliated with that organization. Yoni ben Menachem writes:

Islamic State sleeper cells could infiltrate Jordan to carry out terror attacks or attack the Jordanian border guard. The two refugee camps on the Syrian-Jordanian border, al-Hadalat and al-Rukban, which harbor 100,000 people, offer a convenient haven and staging ground for attacks against Jordan.. . . .

[In a rare interview,] General Mahmoud Freihat [the chief of staff of the Jordanian military] said that Jordan sometimes communicates with Bashar al-Assad’s regime via “liaison officers,” and that there have been talks on moving the two [refugee] camps several kilometers into Syrian territory. . . . The Jordanian chief of staff sees another danger . . . emanating from Islamic State in the form of the Khaled bin al-Walid Brigades, which has an Islamic State orientation and is operating only one kilometer from the Jordanian-Syrian border. According to General Freihat, the organization is equipped with tanks and heavy weapons. . . .

Jordan has long been supplying light weapons to the Bedouin tribes in southern Syria so that they can form a buffer zone and fight Islamic State forces and other jihadist organizations. Jordan is now signaling to Syria that it is prepared to cooperate with it in the war on Islamic State despite its disapproval of Syria’s close ties with Iran.

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.