Trump Seeks to Revive 'Arab NATO' to Confront Iran: Report
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Trump administration is quietly pushing ahead with a bid to create a new security and political alliance with six Persian Gulf Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, to contain Iran’s growing influence in the region, a report said.
The White House wants to see deeper cooperation between the countries on missile defense, military training, counter-terrorism and other issues such as strengthening regional economic and diplomatic ties, four sources said, Reuters reported.
The plan to forge what officials in the White House and Middle East have called an “Arab NATO” of Arab allies will likely raise tensions between the United States and Iran, two countries increasingly at odds since Donald Trump took office.
The US administration’s hope is that the effort, Washington’s so-called Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA), might be discussed at a summit provisionally scheduled for Washington on Oct. 12-13, several sources said.
The White House confirmed it was working on the concept of the alliance with “our regional partners now and have been for several months.”
Saudi officials raised the idea of a security pact ahead of a Trump visit last year to Saudi Arabia where he announced a massive arms deal, but the alliance proposal did not get off the ground, a US source said.
Sources from some of the Arab countries involved also said they were aware of renewed efforts to activate the plan. Officials from other potential participants did not respond to requests for comment.
“MESA will serve as a bulwark against Iranian aggression, terrorism, extremism, and will bring stability to the Middle East,” a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council said.
The spokesperson declined to confirm that Trump would host a summit on those dates and sources cautioned that it remains uncertain whether the security plan will be finalized by mid-October.
Similar initiatives by previous US administrations to develop a more formal alliance with the Persian Gulf and Arab allies have failed in the past.
Washington, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, three major sponsors of terrorism in the region, accuse Iran of destabilizing the region, fomenting unrest in some Arab countries through proxy groups and increasingly threatening Israel.