According to a leaked report from a Western intelligence agency, Qatar had prior knowledge of Iran’s May 12 attack on Saudi, Norwegian, and United Arab Emirates ships in the Persian Gulf, and kept the information to itself. The incident puts into high relief a longstanding problem: that Doha maintains good relations with the West, and is home to a major U.S. airbase, but simultaneously remains on friendly terms with Iran and is a major supporter of Hamas and other Islamist groups. Julie Lenarz comments:

The latest development . . . is of a different nature [from the other forms of bad behavior]. It raises the prospect of Qatar’s having had specific, prior knowledge of an imminent attack against Western and allied forces that threatened the safety of innocent sailors, and doing nothing about it. . . . Qatar’s failing to warn international allies suggests the mullahs now have a complicit partner, or at least a nation that won’t stand in their way.

It also fits with Doha’s wider duplicitous approach to diplomacy: professing to fight terrorism while funding and protecting extremists; seeking to improve relations with the global Jewish community while financing an explicitly anti-Semitic Al Jazeera documentary about the “Israel lobby”; pursuing close relations with America while cozying up to Tehran.

Doha has come down to the belief that their support for designated terrorist organizations and tyrannical regimes does not appear to be hindering its flourishing relationship with the West. . . . However, almost all European governments have dismissed those concerns. . . . One hopes that the revelation that Qatar has been silently complicit in Iranian attacks against Western and allied assets will wake some governments up. The evidence is there for all to see.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.