Prospects of the ongoing war between Israel and Iran escalating into a wider regional conflict had heightened within two days after its inception, reports Ahmed Mustafa. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that Israeli attempts to expand the conflict into the Gulf risk triggering a regional war. He told reporters in Tehran, “Israel’s strike on the Asaluyeh facility was a serious strategic miscalculation aimed at dragging the conflict into the Gulf… The region’s complexity makes any military escalation a global threat, not just a regional one.”
Israel had targeted a number of oil and gas facilities in Iran on Saturday, with Iran retaliating by hitting energy facilities near Haifa hours later. Iran also warned the US and other Western countries, especially Britain, that should they intervene in support of Israel it would target their interests in the region.
The US, the UK and France have a military presence in the Gulf and a number of military bases in Gulf Arab countries. From the onset of the war, with Israel striking many sites in Iran in the early hours of Friday, there was a fear that the Gulf countries might not be spared the war spilling onto them.
The initial stated goal of Israel’s aggression against Iran was to hit its nuclear facilities to stop Tehran developing a nuclear weapon. But developments hours after Iranian rockets hit Israel in response to its attack showed that Israel is intent on crippling Iran and will probably push for ousting its regime.
The Gulf countries, like most Arab countries, condemned Israel’s “unprovoked” attack on Iran in strong words. Though some reports in the Israeli media suggest that “despite public condemnation of Israel, [the Gulf countries want to see Tehran weakened; several host US bases and worry they could be targeted by the regime.”
The AFP carried a story quoting the director of the Chatham House think tank’s Middle East and North Africa Programme Sanam Vakil: “The Gulf states are very much caught between a rock and a hard place… they are quietly applauding the further weakening of Iran, they face real risks and have to play their cards carefully.”
Some analysts argue against this notion of Vakil’s, as the situation is now different from ten years ago, when the Gulf states wanted the US to actively curb Iran. During US President Donald Trump’s tour in the Gulf last month, Saudi and Qatari leaders asked him to restrain Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s push to attack Iran. Andrew Hammond of Oxford University told Al-Ahram Weekly Iran would refrain from targeting any Saudi or Qatari interests, though “they are signalling that they will attack military sites in the Gulf related to Israeli operations” only.
On Saturday, the Emir of Qatar and the Saudi Crown Prince talked to the Iranian president over the phone hours after the two leaders received calls from Trump. From the first hour of the war, the Omanis have been actively calling all parties, trying to find a way to de-escalate. Even though the last round of talks between Washington and Tehran in Muscat were cancelled, Omani diplomacy is still active in trying to cool down the flaring conflict.
Saudi Arabia is actually distancing itself from anti-Iran rhetoric, and in a gesture of goodwill has accommodated all Iranian pilgrims who could not return to their country until war stops.
Many commentators note that Iran, if it felt desperate, could target energy facilities in the Gulf and not only American and Western military bases hosted by Gulf countries. They mentioned the 2019 attack on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco sites claimed by the Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi militia. The Houthis also targeted the UAE in 2022. “Saudi Arabia has been very careful in how it has behaved since October 7, but the UAE is a barely concealed Israeli ally. The UAE was targeted in 2019 and it could happen again,” Hammond said. He added that if the war escalates anything is possible, including Iran blockading the Strait of Hormuz, which would badly hurt the Gulf states economically.
As the war continues, the mood in the Gulf is anticipation if not anxiety that the conflict might widen to include it. Even those who are anti-Iran in the region would not side with Israel – at least not publicly. As a veteran Western diplomat who worked in the region before puts it, this is not 2018 when many Gulf countries welcomed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. When missile and drone attacks on a Saudi oil facility in 2019 crippled production for a month, Trump did nothing to defend his Gulf allies.
Many Gulf countries now realise that if Israel can have American military cover to defend it that is not the case for them, even though military fighters are present at bases on their soil. Despite the detente of recent years between Iran and the Gulf, especially the Chinese-brokered restoration of diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran, Gulf capitals are fretting over any escalation of hostilities in the region.
Even if the war led to achieving the Israeli goal of regime collapse in Tehran, that would be cause for concern to neighbouring countries on the other side of the Gulf. Other examples in the region where regimes fell have subsequently left a chaotic vacuum, with unexpected prospects. In all cases, what the Gulf countries hope for is de-escalation and avoiding regional fires. In the meantime, they are keen to avoid another “failed state” in their midst.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 19 June, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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