Kill Chain Reaction: Gulf Arabs Hedge Bets Over Iran Assassination
Fearing reprisals for their new Israel ties, the UAE and Bahrain denounce the hit on Iran’s nuclear scientist
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In one of those confusing Middle East developments that underscore just how complicated the region’s political landscape has become, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain earlier this week denounced the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist.
It seems like just yesterday that both Gulf monarchies signed up with Israel in an effective alliance against Iran. What a difference a murder makes. The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, said the UAE, was “heinous.”
Tehran responded furiously to the UAE’s move, threatening to hold the oil-rich sheikhdom responsible for even the smallest breach of Iranian national security.
With Iran now plotting its revenge for the assassination, that threat looms larger than ever over Israel’s new Gulf Arab partners.
One could be forgiven for wondering why two Gulf Arab countries that recently normalized relations with Israel precisely because of the threats, both conventional and nuclear, that Iran poses to all of them, would essentially take Te…