Gulf countries press for end to Iran war with push for diplomacy

Gulf countries are pushing for an end to the war between the U.S., Israel and Iran, a rare moment of unity in a fight they tried to avoid.

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, who rarely see first-hand conflict in the region, have all come under varying degrees of attack from Iran. 

Once thought to serve as a deterrent, American military bases and diplomatic outposts in these countries are a bullseye for Iranian missiles and have come under heavy fire as the war stretches into its 13th day. Cheaply produced one-way Iranian attack drones have successfully evaded billion-dollar air defense systems.

Iran has shown little restraint in hitting Gulf countries’ oil facilities and putting civilians under attack — damaging freshwater resources, airports, hotels and shopping malls. 

These six countries, all part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), rallied 135 nations at the United Nations to condemn Iran’s retaliatory strikes, in a resolution that passed the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday. 

The resolution served to underscore Iran’s isolation amid the nearly two-wee-long war, even as Qatar and Oman — historically friendly countries toward Tehran — push for diplomacy. 

“Our message to all the Iranian leadership, you have chosen to drag the region into this war in the hopes of finding an end to it. You are doing the complete opposite of that,” Majed Al-Ansari, Qatar’s advisor to the prime minister and official spokesperson for the ministry of foreign affairs, told CBS

“We have to find a way of living together in peace, and threatening us is in no way helping your case.” 

The collective anger at Iran does not mean Gulf countries are supportive of President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to launch the war on Feb 28. 

“The mood in the Gulf is three layers, first is rage against Iran, second is dismay with Washington, and third is profound suspicion about Israel’s regional agenda and profile,” said Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

“There’s a real sense that Israel is on a rampage and completely out of control and has transformed itself from a net contributor to regional stability, to being one of the main sources of instability and security.”

The six members of the GCC are using what leverage they have to try and push an off-ramp for all countries. 

Oman’s leader Sultan Haitham bin Tariq spoke with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian by phone on Wednesday and called for “the language of dialogue and diplomacy” to immediately end the conflict. At the same time he expressed “disapproval and unequivocal condemnation” after Iranian drones struck an oil storage facility in the country’s Salalah port. 

Gulf countries see little benefit from Trump’s war against Iran given wide-ranging and sometimes contradictory U.S. objectives, including suffering from increasing costs under Iranian attacks. There’s no clear timeline on when the U.S. and Israel are prepared to end hostilities.  

“At this point in time, many of the ending scenarios of this war have cost them much more than what they could have gotten through negotiations with Iran,” said Yasmine Farouk, Project Director, Gulf and Arabian Peninsula with the International Crisis Group. 

The U.S. and Israel have undoubtedly weakened Iran by taking out its air defenses, destroying large parts of its Navy and wiping out much of their senior leadership. 

But the Islamic Republic has rallied, upending the global energy market by halting oil traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and their drones wreaking havoc on the Gulf countries, sending tourists and investors fleeing. 

And attacks on desalination plants in Iran and Bahrain signaled a potentially major escalation against civilian targets. Bahrain accused Iran of the attack on its plant, which sustained damages. The U.S. denied it was responsible for the attack against an Iranian desalination plant. It’s not clear if the plants are currently in service. 

Also concerning is Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium that the regime could use to try and build a nuclear weapon. Iran has always denied it seeks building a nuclear weapon and said its enrichment program is for peaceful purposes. 

“I think all Gulf countries have been very clear that the trust in Iran has been shattered, but I don’t think the pursuit of diplomacy with it will be over,” Farouk said.

“We are witnessing the war option, it is still not ushering toward the outcome that is needed for their security.” 

Some Gulf countries are using what resources and leverage they have against both Iran and the U.S. to try to find an off ramp to the war. 

Qatar and Oman hold diplomatic leverage with Iran as the only countries willing to extend themselves as mediators, giving Tehran an off ramp. 

“Iran needs them more than they need Iran at this point,” Farouk said of these countries’ leverage. 

Trump has held back from asking the Gulf countries to join the offensive U.S. and Israeli military operations, but Gulf countries are also not signaling any willingness to get into the fight. 

“They don’t want to do it,” said Ibish, who said he posed this question to Gulf officials and experts in the region. 

“What they want is for this thing to end. They don’t think it will benefit them to hit back.”

A White House official told The Hill that the U.S. is currently receiving regional air defense and operational support from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait

White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said Iran’s retaliatory ballistic missile attacks have decreased by 90 percent over the course of two weeks of fighting. 

“President Trump is in close contact with our partners in the Middle East, and the terrorist Iranian regime’s attacks on its neighbors prove how imperative it was that President Trump eliminate this threat to our country and our allies,” she said. 

Gulf countries are confronting the limits to their leverage with the U.S., where control of the oil supply and influence on the markets historically carried weight in American decision making.

But Trump ignored Gulf countries’ pushback on launching the war in the first place. And Trump has given no clear guidance on what he sees is the timeline for wrapping up military operations. 

In an effort to get Trump’s attention, Gulf states have warned they could hold back billions of promised investments in the U.S. to reinvest in their own military defense. 

Colby Connelly, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, said that Gulf countries are not likely to trigger an economic breakup with the U.S., but he said the countries are demonstrating anger and frustration with the Trump administration. 

“One of the more telling things that you’ve seen in the last few days… was the report that some of the Gulf states were considering divesting from U.S.- held assets in order to help bear the cost of the war,” he said during a panel briefing on Monday. 

“I think where Gulf states see where that can be a point of leverage in a situation – I don’t want to veer too far into the political realm – but where they feel perhaps their views on getting into this situation were not taken as seriously as they would have liked them to have been, that is something they can do that does capture attention,” Connelly during a panel briefing on Monday. 

“I think that is less a symptom of some kind of an economic breakup, more something that they think will definitely catch and hold the attention of the Trump administration.” 

Even if Gulf countries can’t break up with the U.S. immediately, or completely, they might start to further develop relations with China, Russia and to an extent Europe, said Firas Maksad, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa practice at Eurasia Group. 

“These countries do not have much of an alternative to the American security umbrella in the region, they are tethered to the United States as far as their security is concerned,” he said. 

But they can deepen already existing economic ties with China and cooperation with Russia through the OPEC+ oil grouping. Gulf countries can even begin to diversify their weapons supplies, going to Europe or looking farther east to India or other Indo-Pacific countries. 

“Now that’s not a break with the U.S., but it does mean that they begin to hedge and diversify as a result of what they view: a lack of trust or an inability by the US administration to live up to its commitments,” Maksad said. 

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