On Friday, senior officials from Tehran and Riyadh announced the restoration of diplomatic ties between their respective countries. The agreement appears to signal a Saudi pivot away from the U.S. It is also a way for China, which brokered the deal, to assert itself as a a major powerbroker in the Middle East. But Bobby Ghosh cautions against reading too much into this development:

[T]he presence of full-fledged ambassadors in Tehran and Riyadh did little to ameliorate antagonism in the past. As for regional security, the greatest threat to the Gulf is posed by Iran’s attacks—mostly through proxies in Yemen and Iraq—on Saudi targets. The fox can hardly be trusted to cooperate in the security of the henhouse.

For the agreement to have any substance, the Iranians would have to call off their surrogates in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has been bogged down in a conflict with the Tehran-backed Houthi militia. That the announcement in Beijing wasn’t preceded, or even accompanied, by an openly stated Iranian promise to this effect is a measure of Riyadh’s desperation to extract itself from the quagmire. It is conceivable that secret assurances have been given, but the Saudis will know not to trust the word of the party holding the catspaw.

The Saudis will also be keenly aware of the direct threat from Iran, whether through its nuclear ambitions (its uranium-enrichment program is now within a whisker of weapons-grade output), its production of ballistic missiles of progressively longer range, and its reported purchase of state-of-the-art Russian fighter jets. That is why Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the kingdom’s de-facto ruler, is now seeking a U.S. security guarantee and access to more American weapons, in exchange for normalization of relations with Israel.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.