Eli Lake, Columnist

Arabs Need Obama to Guarantee His Guarantee

Elected to end dumb wars, he dives deeper into the Middle East.

May 11, 2015 at 10:30 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

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Leaders from six Gulf Arab nations will assemble at Camp David this week to ask Barack Obama for security guarantees against Iran. It's an awkward moment for the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC. They are seeking commitments from a man whose signature foreign policy achievement would allow Iran to keep much of the nuclear infrastructure Obama once promised to roll back.

But here we are. Traditionally, the way a great power protects its friends from a regional bully is through deterrence. It goes like this: The U.S. makes it clear that picking a fight with Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia is the equivalent of picking a fight with America.