Several years ago, I asked a senior Omani scholar a question that has puzzled many in the Arab world: why does Muscat maintain such deep mutual trust with Tehran, despite decades of Iranian behavior that convinced most Arab states that Iran is not a reliable partner? He answered with quiet confidence: “Because we fought them throughout history. We understood them, and they understood us.”

It was not a nostalgic reference to old battles, but a concise summary of a long political memory. Oman is the only Gulf state that has confronted Persia directly, defeated it at times, and negotiated with it at others. This history includes a fact often ignored in regional narratives: in 1775, it was the Omani fleet that broke the Persian siege of Basra after Arab tribes appealed to Imam Ahmad bin Said. Such episodes are not invoked for pride, but to explain a relationship that cannot be understood through the lens of recent decades alone.

Yet the question returns today in a more bewildering form. How is it that Iranian missiles have struck Omani ports and facilities—despite Oman being the country that worked hardest, and most discreetly, to prevent a war on Iran? How can a state absorb such blows and still refuse to abandon its middle path?

This is not a mystery to those who know Muscat’s political doctrine. Oman’s Foreign Minister, Badr al-Busaidi, told me years ago during a discussion at Cambridge University that Omani moderation is not a tactic, nor a gesture toward Iran alone. It is a governing philosophy—part of how the state defines itself, not a position shaped by the crisis of the moment.

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That philosophy was on full display recently when al-Busaidi published one of the most striking articles of this war in The Economist. Writing as missiles fell on his country, he urged America’s allies to help Washington exit what he called an “illegal war.” He described Iran’s retaliatory strikes on what Tehran claimed were American targets in neighboring states as “inevitable, though deeply regrettable and entirely unacceptable.” Faced with a conflict that Israel and the United States say aims to eliminate the Islamic Republic, he argued that Iran may have seen no other rational option.

He warned that the consequences of this escalation are felt most sharply on the southern shores of the Gulf, where Arab states that placed their security in American hands now see that partnership as a vulnerability.

The greatest American mistake, he wrote, was allowing itself to be drawn into a war that is not its own—one with no plausible scenario in which Washington or Tel Aviv achieves its stated goals.

The greatest American mistake, he wrote, was allowing itself to be drawn into a war that is not its own—one with no plausible scenario in which Washington or Tel Aviv achieves its stated goals.

He expressed hope that talk of regime change in Iran is mere rhetoric, noting that Israel openly seeks the collapse of the Islamic Republic without much concern for what might follow.

Here lies the paradox few dare to articulate: a state under fire chooses to speak the language of mediation, not victimhood. This is not naïveté. It is the logic of a small state that understands the cost of anger, and the price of being dragged into a conflict it cannot control.

Critics often dismiss Omani moderation as weakness or appeasement, as if foreign policy were measured only by the volume of one’s outrage. But this view ignores a simple truth: states that shout do not necessarily shape events, while states that calm the waters sometimes do.

Oman is not defending Iran; it is defending a principle—that the region cannot survive another catastrophic war, and that turning the Gulf into a battleground for American, Iranian, and Israeli calculations is a form of collective suicide.

Oman is not defending Iran; it is defending a principle—that the region cannot survive another catastrophic war, and that turning the Gulf into a battleground for American, Iranian, and Israeli calculations is a form of collective suicide.

Nor is Omani neutrality a moral equivalence between aggressor and victim. It is a cold reading of regional realities. Muscat knows that forcibly toppling the Iranian regime would not produce a safer Middle East. It could instead unleash a wave of instability stretching from the Gulf to Iraq and Afghanistan. Oman’s message is implicit but clear: the question is not whether one likes or dislikes Tehran, but whether one has calculated the cost of its collapse. In this sense, Omani moderation becomes a form of “compulsory rationality” imposed by geography before conscience.

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That geography matters. Oman sits at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage through which nearly a third of the world’s traded oil flows. Any escalation in this corridor reverberates instantly through global markets. A state that guards such a chokepoint cannot afford impulsive politics. The strait does not need another actor adding fuel to the fire; it needs a state capable of lowering the temperature. Every ship passing through Hormuz is a reminder that the world depends on a calm Oman, not a confrontational one.

This is why Muscat sees itself not merely as a Gulf state, but as a custodian of global energy stability.

If Oman abandons its middle path, the strait becomes hostage to the region’s most volatile rivalries. The world may not always acknowledge this, but it benefits from Omani restraint every single day.

If Oman abandons its middle path, the strait becomes hostage to the region’s most volatile rivalries. The world may not always acknowledge this, but it benefits from Omani restraint every single day.

Omani moderation is therefore not a tactic but a worldview shaped by centuries of political experience. It rejects polarization, resists dependency on any single power, and understands that survival in a turbulent region requires a cool head, not a loud voice. Its understanding of Iran is not rooted in fear or admiration, but in familiarity—an intimate knowledge of a neighbor whose behavior cannot be managed through threats alone.

In the end, Oman bets on time. Wars end, regimes change, alliances shift—but the reputation of a state endures. Muscat has built its reputation on being the actor that does not betray, does not auction its positions, and does not abandon its role as mediator even when it becomes a target.

Missiles may fall on Omani ports, but what does not fall is Muscat’s belief that the world is not governed by anger, but by balance. The moderation some mock is, in truth, the last remaining form of sanity in a region that too often feeds on illusions.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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