Iran’s Persian Gulf Neighbours are Breathing Easier

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

Since the attacks on Iran by Israel and the United States, the regional landscape has shifted, and the Arab states in the Persian Gulf are breathing easier. The Islamic Republic of Iran had cast a shadow over the Middle East for nearly half a century. That has now been somewhat lifted.

Since 1979, Iran has been a problem for Arab Gulf capitals. Tehran has exported its radical Islamism and terrorism across the region, built loyalist militias, agitated popular opinion against Gulf governments, and pursued a nuclear weapon.

The Islamic Republic’s oft-stated ambition to “export” its 1979 Islamic Revolution has long worried its neighbours, particularly those whose populations include sizable Shia Muslim minorities who have long felt aggrieved by the region’s mostly Sunni Muslim leaders.

President Donald Trump’s signature foreign policy achievement of his first term, the Abraham Accords that normalized Israeli diplomatic relations with several Middle Eastern countries, was born from Gulf Arab governments’ mounting anxiety over expanding Iranian influence.

Many Gulf citizens believed Iran is more dangerous to them than Israel, according to Saudi columnist Saleh al-Fhaid. “The overthrow of the mullahs’ regime is thus in the interest of Gulf states, and the price of this regime’s demise, however painful, harsh, and costly, is far less than the state of attrition that this regime has been practicing against Gulf states for four decades.”

On the eve of the current fighting in the region, Iran had acquired effective control of Lebanon, though Hezbollah, and a dominant stake in Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian movement. All this, combined with an alliance with Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, gave Iran effective control of the entire land mass between the Iraq-Iran border and the Mediterranean Sea. Iran could decide in a partial and piecemeal fashion to mobilize its proxies and launch them against Israel.

The country also had the ability to strike directly at the Gulf of Aden/Red Sea shipping route, through the Houthis in Yemen. It had a commanding position in the region, and Iran intended to use it as a springboard for further advances.

Iran had sought to prevent the states grouped in the Gulf Cooperation Council – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – from granting the United States access to military bases on their soil, which could be used to facilitate an attack on Iran.

The Saudis were deeply concerned they might become a target if Iran retaliated against an attack by the United States. In 2019, Iran struck Saudi oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais. Because American unpredictability eroded Saudi confidence, the kingdom decided to seek an alternative.

In 2023, Riyadh restored relations with Tehran. The agreement was meant to guarantee Iranian non-belligerence toward the kingdom. For decades, Iran constituted an enduring threat the Saudis knew they were unable to deter or even meaningfully contain.

But now things have changed. As a result of Hamas’s war with Israel, Iran’s emergent regional empire now lies in ruins. Hezbollah is now weakened, Assad is gone, and Gaza is a wasteland. Iran’s nuclear program has been to some extent destroyed by Israel and the U.S. This has effectively liberated the Gulf states.

With a single stroke, the geopolitical framework that had severely restricted Arab Gulf states’ horizons for decades has collapsed, fundamentally redefining their strategic landscape. The American strikes are likely to have been accepted, and even privately cheered, by the Arab countries that have long seen Shia Iran as the primary threat to regional stability.

“These countries are quietly delighted to see Iran cut down to size,” said Firas Maksad, the managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at the Eurasia Group. “But the primary objective is to guard against blowback targeting them.”

Peace and stability have been the central requirement fuelling the rise of the Gulf powers, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are pivoting their economies toward business and tourism. Being smaller powers than Iran in terms of geographical depth and capabilities, a direct confrontation with Iran was undesirable for them.

As of now, the Gulf states have mostly been spared the Iranian-Israeli conflict’s violent fallout. Some of the monarchies had pledged to Iran they would not participate in attacks against it. And as a bloc, they kept lines of communication to all sides, having cultivated relations with both Iran and Israel as part of a recent push to forge a security policy independent of the United States and insulate the region if war broke out.

The damage to Iran’s military infrastructure now presents new opportunities for the Gulf countries. Indeed, it elevates the Arab Gulf states to prime contenders for regional leadership.

Of course, among the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia unquestionably harbours the highest ambitions and clearest credentials for assuming regional leadership in the post-Iranian landscape. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, determined not to miss his historical opportunity, will now vigorously assert Saudi primacy in Arab and regional affairs.

The Gulf states are indispensable not just financially or diplomatically, but also strategically. They sit at the centre of energy, trade, and the geo-strategic buffer zone between the industrialized west and the global south. Their ability to mediate, to finance peace, to engage adversaries, and to balance the great powers is unique.