{"id":501405,"date":"2026-03-03T14:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501405\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:59:08","slug":"will-the-gulf-states-enter-the-iran-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501405\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the Gulf states enter the Iran conflict?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Gulf Cooperation Council \u2013 a six-member organisation including the UAE and Qatar \u2013 stressed on Sunday that the \u201coption to respond to Iranian attacks<\/a>\u201d with force was very much \u201con the table\u201d, said The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Majed al-Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar<\/a>\u2019s foreign ministry, said the aggression from Iran \u201ccannot go unanswered\u201d and that a \u201cprice has to be paid for this attack on our people\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Gulf states \u201cface a difficult choice\u201d, said Samer Al-Atrush in The Times<\/a>. Either they press Donald Trump<\/a> to \u201cend the war quickly\u201d or encourage him to \u201cdouble 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Trump may have said he was \u201csurprised\u201d by the scale of Tehran\u2019s retaliation, but regional escalation \u201cwas always Iran<\/a>\u2019s plan\u201d, said Al-Atrush. The Islamic regime is banking on \u201cinflicting as much pain on the region until it begs Trump to end the war\u201d.<\/p>\n

This could have the opposite effect, however. If the Gulf states abandon their current \u201cdefensive posture\u201d, they could easily and suddenly \u201cescalate\u201d the conflict by allowing the US to use their airspace and bases for attacks on Iran, or \u201ceven conduct their own\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Gulf states \u201cdid not want this confrontation\u201d, particularly the danger Iranian air strikes pose to their \u201cvulnerable infrastructure\u201d, said Urooba Jamal on Al Jazeera<\/a>. If power grids and water desalination plants are hit and out of action, \u201cthe scorching hot and bone-dry Gulf countries are essentially uninhabitable\u201d, said Monica Marks, a professor of Middle East<\/a> politics at New York University Abu Dhabi. And without their energy industry, the region is \u201cunprofitable\u201d.<\/p>\n

The current turmoil also risks \u201cundoing years of work to de-risk the region\u201d and develop its thriving economies, said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen of Rice University on The Conversation<\/a>. The Gulf states are \u201ccritical hubs in the global economy\u201d for oil, gas, international shipping and travel, and fallout from the \u201cbiggest disruption to global travel since the Covid-19 pandemic\u201d leaves the region \u201cuniquely vulnerable to further escalation by Iran\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Tehran is gambling that upping the pressure will \u201cencourage Gulf leaders to press Trump for an endgame\u201d rather than \u201cpushing them further back into Washington\u2019s orbit\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gulf states have \u201clong viewed the Islamic Republic as a menace\u201d, but have made concerted efforts towards \u201crapprochement with their foe, hoping to avoid exactly this scenario\u201d, said The Economist<\/a>. Both Saudi Arabia<\/a> and the UAE have \u201crestored diplomatic ties\u201d with Iran in recent years. Oman, hosting negotiations between the US and Iran just hours before the first strikes, believed that a solution was \u201cwithin our reach\u201d and could \u201cbe agreed tomorrow\u201d. Those efforts are \u201calmost certainly dead\u201d.<\/p>\n

What next?<\/p>\n

States in the region \u201cwon\u2019t just sit back\u201d and take continued Iranian aggression, said Cathrin Schaer on Deutsche Welle<\/a>. It is \u201cpossible\u201d that Gulf states’ forces \u201center the war directly\u201d, but it is more likely they will engage in \u201cnarrow self-defence\u201d operations rather than widespread offensive strikes, said Andreas Krieg, from King\u2019s College London<\/a>. As well as trying to maintain diplomatic channels \u2013 most likely through Oman and Qatar \u2013 the Gulf states will also look to \u201cimprove their defensive posture\u201d and protect their critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Whether they are drawn into the conflict directly or not, \u201cthe Gulf that emerges from the Iran war will be very different\u201d, said Allison Minor on the Atlantic Council<\/a>. If Iran were to fall, so would its \u201cmilitary capabilities, network of proxies, and regional ambitions\u201d, which have shaped the politics of the Middle East for decades.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia, which has \u201clong sought to become the dominant power\u201d in the Middle East, \u201cstands to benefit the most from a weakened Iran\u201d. As the war continues, Riyadh\u2019s \u201cposture\u201d will offer \u201cvaluable clues to what the coming era in the Middle East may bring\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Gulf Cooperation Council \u2013 a six-member organisation including the UAE and Qatar \u2013 stressed on Sunday that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-501405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}