Eyeing Tehran, U.S. and GCC Partners Seek to Develop Regional Security Architecture
Senior American government officials traveled to Saudi Arabia this week to participate in U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Working Group meetings focusing on integrated air and missile defense, maritime security, Iran, and counterterrorism. The Biden administration seeks to signal its continued commitment to the region and advance longstanding efforts to develop a Middle East security architecture. “There has been no other moment in time in which the prospect for meaningful integration is more real than today,” U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Dana Stroul said on Monday. That is because of a “shared assessment between the United States and the GCC of the threats that face us,” primarily those from Iran and its terror proxies.