How Iranian Missiles Could Secure Israel-GCC Normalization

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The Arab nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council are realizing that Iran is not a true diplomatic partner, but a long-term strategic threat requiring closer coordination with America and Israel.

Three weeks ago, it would have been unthinkable for Al Jazeera to run an op-ed arguing that the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran was working. The Qatari state-funded outlet has been at the vanguard of the information war against Israel since the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, 2023. Indeed, it employed at least six journalists who simultaneously served as operatives in Hamas’ military wing and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, giving terrorist fighters cover as credentialed press.

Yet on March 16, Al Jazeera published exactly that article—written from Doha by an academic living under Iranian missile alerts. When the house organ of Qatari soft power begins making the case for American and Israeli war aims, something fundamental has shifted.

What shifted was Iranian ordnance falling on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states—Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. The ensuing outrage across the Gulf has created the most significant opportunity for American strategic interests in the Middle East since the Abraham Accords: the chance to bring the GCC states decisively into a formalized security architecture with the United States and Israel. For the first time in decades, the countries of the Persian Gulf are not hedging between Washington and Tehran. They are choosing—and more specifically, they are choosing America.

Iran Shot Missiles at Its Arab Neighbors—and Itself in the Foot

For nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic sought to unite the Muslim world in antithesis to the United States and Israel. Through proxy networks, nuclear ambiguity, and rhetorical positioning as defender of Palestinian and........

© The National Interest