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Doha, Qatar – Gulf states have received a successful partnership between the United States and Iran to end the war he didn’t want to at all.
Six countries – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman – make it Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)which was created in 1981 in response to a perceived threat to the expansion of the new Iranian government.
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Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Israel has tried to isolate Iran and its large group of regional representative groups. But ironically, Israel’s brutality in this process has made other Gulf countries closer to Tehran.
When Israel and the US launched an attack on Iran on February 28 – and Tehran responded by attacking the Gulf states – they were forced to reevaluate their relationship with their neighbor.
Gulf relations with Iran, for now, seem to be more about realism than reconciliation, but this approach could help them navigate an uncertain path.
“The ongoing conflict… forced the Gulf countries to establish better relations with Tehran, which would include negotiations to resolve the conflict,” Farah al-Qawasmi, a researcher at the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera.
Agreeing to decline – not Iran
All six GCC countries have received a memorandum of understanding (MOU) by Iran and the US last week. But this is largely shaped by the Gulf states who want the war to end rather than Iran’s renewed confidence.
“Cooperation between the two groups is being (greatly) strengthened by the Gulf countries in order to (try to) prevent and resolve regional conflicts,” al-Qawasmi said.
Shortly after the US and Iran agreed in 2015 to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – putting safeguards on Tehran’s nuclear program – the Gulf countries remained suspicious of their neighbor.
The current war has only increased suspicion, but it has also seen regional countries seek dialogue with Tehran rather than military conflict, even as Iran directly attacks Gulf cities.
“Gulf countries still feel that dialogue is better than using force to reach an agreement…
Pinfold points out that Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz through drones and missiles, not nuclear weapons, which made countering the threat a priority for the Gulf states instead of Tehran’s nuclear program.
The Gulf states will want a comprehensive deal between Iran and the US, not just the nuclear-related JCPOA, Pinfold said.
He said: “If you talk to people living in the big cities of the Gulf, they will tell you that tomorrow is a nuclear crisis.
“The problem today is Iran’s use of drones and proxies to disrupt and undermine the sovereignty of the Gulf states, and the entire region.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s three-day visit to the Gulf, which ends on Thursday, is seen as a way to allay these fears and reassure the GCC that Tehran will not be encouraged by the deal.
Sit at the table
Mehran Haghirian, director of research and programs at the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, believes that the Gulf countries have the opportunity to lead the outcome of the US-Iran talks more than 2015.
“They are at the center of the negotiations,” Haghirian said of the role of the Gulf states in the current negotiations.
In its role as a mediator, Qatar represents the GCC and their interests in the negotiations, while articles five and six of the Iran-US MoU place the Gulf countries at the center of the agreement.
One of the biggest challenges for the GCC is the future of Hormuz RiverTehran wants money to pay for remittances, and calls for the creation of a regional financial fund for Iran.
“There can be no new regime for Hormuz and Iran that would include other GCC countries,” Haghirian told Al Jazeera.
US Vice President J.D. Vance said last week that the financing would be provided by the Gulf coalition, but Rubio said this week that regional allies would not be asked to support any reconstruction fund for Iran.
The Prime Minister of Qatar Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has explained this $300 billion as “demands” in an interview with the Financial Times, where none of the Gulf countries have said whether they will support the money.
‘Maximum pressure era’
The researchers emphasize that the GCC is not one – it is the Gulf countries that have different ways of changing Iran.
Oman, Qatar and Kuwait strongly supported the JCPOA. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain were more skeptical, but even these countries have publicly agreed to the deal, Haghirian said.
When Trump pulled the US out of the JCPOA in 2018, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain believed they had “found an ally in DC”.
That led to a “time of great stress” that led to a period of downtime in the area, Haghirian said.
The alleged cooperation with Iran on Saudi Arabia’s oil field of Abqaiq-Khurais and the ships on the coast of Fujairah in 2019 was “the first thing that the Iranians did under great pressure,” he added, but surprisingly, this also led to the renewal of relations.
The UAE and Iran restored relations in 2022, and a China’s alliance with Saudi-Iran it happened in 2023.
“This was reason enough for Saudi Arabia (and) the UAE, in particular, to revise their approach to Iran,” Haghirian said.
War is the urgency of pragmatic rapprochement
While Israel has used the war to try to increase its presence in the Gulf region – it says it is sending Iron Dome battery to UAE – other Gulf countries see Iran and Israel as destabilizing powers in the region.
“Israel started the war, which was destabilizing, and Iran expanded by targeting the Gulf states, which was destabilizing,” Pinfold said.
Despite this, the Gulf countries concerned with Iran still showed patience and pragmatism in dealing with their neighbor.
Qatar, for example, has taken a leading role in mediating between the US and Iran, even as it sits on the receiving end of Iranian drones and missiles.
“All six were attacked, and this is a part of foreign policy making that is very difficult for any country to do, considering it was a military attack,” Haghirian said.
“Also, this pragmatism emerged within this context to engage with Iran and speak for itself in these discussions.
