Saudi Arabia has been in the news this week because of the recent release of a 2016 FBI report on the role of its subjects in the September 11 terrorist attacks. But there is other, more timely news from the country that the press has largely ignored: a military cooperation agreement concluded last month between Riyadh, a traditional U.S ally, and Moscow, a supporter of the anti-American Iran-Syria axis. Ilan Berman comments:

Since it took office some seven months ago, the Biden administration has upended practically every aspect of its predecessor’s approach to the [Middle East], with the 76-year U.S.-Saudi relationship one of the principal casualties. . . . The cumulative effect, as one prominent analyst put it, was an act of “diplomatic arson” in one of Washington’s longest-running partnerships in the region.

If those machinations gave Riyadh serious pause, the administration’s other regional maneuvers have given it still more. Take, for instance, team Biden’s tepid response to the “Abraham Accords.” . . . From the start of its tenure, the administration has been hesitant to recognize those agreements in any meaningful way—and quick to minimize them when it has had no choice but to do so.

That has had a chilling effect on other potential entrants, including Saudi Arabia, which at the tail end of the Trump administration was widely considered likely to become the next nation to normalize ties with Israel. Simply put, President Joe Biden’s lukewarm attitude toward Arab-Israeli reconciliation—and his apparent unwillingness to nurture any such rapprochement—has dramatically cooled Riyadh on the idea of taking such a significant (and for the Saudis, politically risky) step.

It’s no wonder, then, that the Saudis have begun looking further afield.

And not just to Moscow, notes Berman, but also to Beijing.

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.