Among the more disturbing items in the recent leak of classified Pentagon materials is evidence that Egypt was prepared to manufacture rockets and other munitions for Russia. Yoel Guzansky and Arkady Mil-Man examine this and other revelations about the Kremlin’s relations with the Arab world in light of what is already known about the subject. They find that Vladimir Putin has been usurping the traditional U.S. role in the region:

Russia remains an important arms source and between 2018 and 2022 was the third largest arms exporter, after the U.S. and France, to Middle East states (including Iran). [Another] central factor in Russia’s importance to the Gulf states is its good relations with the Iranian regime, and Moscow’s ability to influence Tehran’s decisions. In the eyes of the Gulf states, the U.S. failed to prevent Iran from going nuclear and is insufficiently attentive to their security issues, even as Iran has strengthened militarily and positioned itself at the nuclear threshold. The relationship with Russia is therefore vital to them as leverage over Iran.

Russia and the Gulf states also have a partnership of interests in coordinating oil prices. The Gulf states, which hold some 40 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, have indicated (most recently in their April 2023 decision) that they are committed to understandings with Russia as part of the OPEC+ cartel. The decision by the Gulf states to cut oil production again—in coordination with Russia—has aroused anger in the U.S., both because of its impact on oil markets and because of the indirect assistance it offers the Russian war effort in Ukraine.

U.S. influence in the region has weakened, but not disappeared. Thus, for example, significant U.S. pressure led the UAE to vote in the UN General Assembly against Russia, after it abstained in the first vote in the UN Security Council. Similar heavy pressure also led the UAE to cancel the license it had granted for the operation of a Russian bank on its territory—a step that would have allowed Russia to move money easily in spite of sanctions against it.

However, Israel must continue to observe with some concern the trend of developing relations between Russia (and China) and states in the region.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.