Will the Gulf states enter the Iran conflict?

The Gulf Cooperation Council – a six-member organisation including the UAE and Qatar – stressed on Sunday that the “option to respond to Iranian attacks” with force was very much “on the table”, said The Guardian.

Majed al-Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry, said the aggression from Iran “cannot go unanswered” and that a “price has to be paid for this attack on our people”.

The Gulf states “face a difficult choice”, said Samer Al-Atrush in The Times. Either they press Donald Trump to “end the war quickly” or encourage him to “double down and hit Iran even harder, possibly with their help. Neither is ideal for an energy-rich region that has been sucked into a war it had hoped to avoid.”

What did the commentators say?

Trump may have said he was “surprised” by the scale of Tehran’s retaliation, but regional escalation “was always Iran’s plan”, said Al-Atrush. The Islamic regime is banking on “inflicting as much pain on the region until it begs Trump to end the war”.

This could have the opposite effect, however. If the Gulf states abandon their current “defensive posture”, they could easily and suddenly “escalate” the conflict by allowing the US to use their airspace and bases for attacks on Iran, or “even conduct their own”.

The Gulf states “did not want this confrontation”, particularly the danger Iranian air strikes pose to their “vulnerable infrastructure”, said Urooba Jamal on Al Jazeera. If power grids and water desalination plants are hit and out of action, “the scorching hot and bone-dry Gulf countries are essentially uninhabitable”. And without their energy industry, the region is “unprofitable”, said Monica Marks, a professor of Middle East politics at New York University Abu Dhabi.

The current turmoil also risks “undoing years of work to de-risk the region” and develop its thriving economies, said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen of Rice University on The Conversation. The Gulf states are “critical hubs in the global economy” for oil, gas, international shipping and travel, and fallout from the “biggest disruption to global travel since the Covid-19 pandemic” leaves the region “uniquely vulnerable to further escalation by Iran”.

Tehran is gambling that upping the pressure will “encourage Gulf leaders to press Trump for an endgame” rather than “pushing them further back into Washington’s orbit”.

Gulf states have “long viewed the Islamic Republic as a menace”, but have made concerted efforts towards “rapprochement with their foe, hoping to avoid exactly this scenario”, said The Economist. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have “restored diplomatic ties” with Iran in recent years. Oman, hosting negotiations between the US and Iran just hours before the first strikes, believed that a solution was “within our reach” and could “be agreed tomorrow”. Those efforts are “almost certainly dead”.

What next?

States in the region “won’t just sit back” and take continued Iranian aggression, said Cathrin Schaer on Deutsche Welle. It is “possible” that Gulf states' forces “enter the war directly”, but it is more likely they will engage in “narrow self-defence” operations rather than widespread offensive strikes, said Andreas Krieg, from King’s College London. As well as trying to maintain diplomatic channels – most likely through Oman and Qatar – the Gulf states will also look to “improve their defensive posture” and protect their critical infrastructure.

Whether they are drawn into the conflict directly or not, “the Gulf that emerges from the Iran war will be very different”, said Allison Minor on the Atlantic Council. If Iran were to fall, so would its “military capabilities, network of proxies, and regional ambitions”, which have shaped the politics of the Middle East for decades.

Saudi Arabia, which has “long sought to become the dominant power” in the Middle East, “stands to benefit the most from a weakened Iran”. As the war continues, Riyadh’s “posture” will offer “valuable clues to what the coming era in the Middle East may bring”.