Earlier this week, Secretary of Defense James Mattis visited Oman and met with its ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said al-Said. Among other things, they most likely discussed the fact that Iran has been using Qaboos’s country to smuggle arms to Yemen. Nicole Salter writes:

Since the Yemeni conflict broke out in 2015, U.S. warships have intercepted several Iranian weapons shipments intended for the Houthi rebels there. Likewise, the Saudi-led coalition opposing the Houthis has worked to disrupt Iran’s maritime supply routes along Yemen’s western coastline, near Houthi-controlled territory. [But] much of Iran’s arms smuggling into Yemen occurs through overland routes from Oman. . . . Saudi and Yemeni officials suspect that weapons have been stored at the Salalah airport in [the Omani city of] Dhofar and on small islands off the coast, and then are smuggled [across the border] to Yemen.

There is no evidence of Omani authorities assisting Tehran in its weapons smuggling, although Saudi and Yemeni officials believe Muscat has overlooked pro-Houthi activity in Dhofar. . . . Oman has a history of lax enforcement. When Iran was under severe sanctions prior to the 2015 nuclear deal, Omanis living in the coastal town of Khasab were known to ferry goods across the Strait of Hormuz to the Iranian island of Qeshm. . . .

Oman has cultivated a reputation as a neutral mediator of conflicts in the region. Following the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), it mediated talks to restore ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia. During the Obama administration, Oman served as a back channel for nuclear negotiations with Iran. Since the Yemen conflict began, Oman has negotiated the release of hostages and is now set to host a new round of talks to find a “peaceful and political solution to the conflict. . . .” Neutrality is acceptable, but not at the expense of illegal arms trafficking.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.