For a decade, India and Israel have been developing a largely-secret strategic alliance. Today, that relationship — based on the mutual struggle of two non-Islamic countries to survive against larger and hostile neighbors — is being tested.
    The two countries have agreed on an accelerated schedule for the delivery of weapons as well as the prospect of obtaining systems embargoed by the West. They have also increased their intelligence exchange and cooperation to a level that has alarmed Iran, Pakistan and the Arab states.
    The way it works is quite simple. Israel provides security and military expertise to New Delhi in such fields as command and control and counter-insurgency. New Delhi provides Israel with access to India's borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as to regional states such as Iran.
    The relationship is built on that of Israel's Mossad with India's RAW agency. RAW, taking advantage of India's significant presence in the Middle East, has tremendous amounts of information on such countries as Iran, Libya and Pakistan. The huge Indian expatriate presence in Gulf Cooperation Council states is another area of Israeli interest.
    So far, the relationship is going well — so well, in fact, that the United States has entered the fray. Washington now exchanges intelligence with India in what appears to be the start of a trilateral strategic relationship. 
 

    The Indian-U.S. cooperation has merely bolstered Washington's monitoring of Iran. The result is that these days Iran feels the eyes of the United States upon the Islamic republic.
    U.S. warplanes and unmanned air vehicles are flying constantly over the Iranian border in reconnaissance missions to survey the movement of Al Qaida from Afghanistan. This has been made possible by the new U.S. base at Herat near the Iranian border.
    Iranian officials have watched such American UAVs as the Predator and Global Hawk. These UAVs monitor Iranian military deployment deep into eastern Iran as well as report on the movement of Al Qaida insurgents to and from Iran.
    The Herat base also allows the United States to more easily monitor Iran's weapons of mass destruction program. Many of the tests take place in the deserted Semnan region east of Teheran. The United States has been placing advanced ground-based radar to detect missile and rocket tests deep in Iran without the use of spy satellites. 
 

    The pressure on Jordan was tremendous. Iran, Lebanon and Syria pressed the Hashemite kingdom to release three Hizbullah agents who were smuggling Katyusha rockets from Lebanon through Syria and Jordan. The destination of the weapons was the Palestinian Authority.
    In the end, King Abdullah decided that discretion would be the better part of valor. He ordered the release of the three Hizbullah agents — arrested late last year — on the basis of a pledge by Iran and Lebanon that this wouldn't happen again.
    Arab intelligence sources are skeptical. As they see it, Hizbullah has been operating with impunity in the Levant and the release of the three agents could only bolster that assessment.
    The sources said Hizbullah employs Jordan for arms and insurgency smuggling to the West Bank and Saudi Arabia. In April, the Saudi kingdom cracked down on the infiltration of suspected insurgents and launched a widescale offensive against strongholds along the Jordanian border.
    For its part, Hizbullah, which announced the detentions in March, isn't pledging to stop the use of Jordan for arms smuggling. Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah formally thanked Lebanese President Emile Lahoud "for the efforts, especially by the Interior Ministry and general security, that led to the releases."