Politics, they say, makes strange bedfellows. Even a month ago, hardly anyone would have foreseen that Saudi Arabia would sit down with Israel, the United States, and other Arab nations to discuss a joint military strategy against Iran and its Houthi proxies.

Reportedly, at the secret conference in early September, Israeli officials offered to provide Riyadh with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support similar to the assistance it has been providing to the United Arab Emirates (including the Iron Dome).

The Houthis have targeted Saudi Arabia, shutting down oil pipeline operations (and severely impacting world oil prices) even while allowing ship travel by other nations through the Red Sea. Like their big brothers in Tehran, their goal appears to be to punish the rest of the world for interfering with Iran’s goal of becoming a nuclear superpower.

This historic shift in alliances — despite the unresolved matter of the Gaza Strip, the one-time Egyptian territory that has been a powder keg for decades – is not yet operational and may not lead to any deeper ties between Israel and the Saudis. But it would be impossible without American diplomacy, Iran’s attacks on its neighbors, and the urgency to restore the free flow of oil.

That diplomacy may soon produce a result far more important long term, because in July the United States approved in principle a landmark civil nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that would authorize the Saudis to develop their own uranium resources — an even greater insult to the........

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