The six members of the Gulf Co-operation Council (gcc) often struggle with the co-operation bit. Plans for a common currency and a railway across the Arabian peninsula are decades behind schedule. Foreign-policy disputes have led to years-long ruptures between monarchs.
Smoke rises following a strike on the Bapco Oil Refinery, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, on Sitra Island Bahrain, March 9 (REUTERS)
Over the past ten days, war has brought a traumatic consensus. Since America and Israel attacked Iran on February 28th, more than 2,000 Iranian missiles and drones have rained down on Gulf states. The pain has not been equally distributed—more than half of Iran’s attacks thus far have been aimed at the United Arab Emirates (uae), compared with only a handful at Oman—but it has been felt everywhere. One of the most recent drone attacks, on March 9th, hit Bahrain’s sole oil refinery, injuring 32 people and leading the state-run oil company to declare force majeure.
Yet there is no unity on how to respond. That is not only because of long-standing disagreements between states, but also within them: some officials urge restraint, while others seek retaliation. Gulf states are paralysed because they do not trust any of the parties to this war—including themselves.
Start with America. In the months before Donald Trump (and Israel) struck Iran, all six gcc members urged him not to do it. When war began to look inevitable, some added a caveat: if you do it, do it right. They feared that America would drag them through a conflict only to leave the Islamic Republic wounded but intact.
Mr Trump’s vague suggestion on March 9th that the war could be nearing an end might have spooked them. Gulf rulers know that he can be unreliable. Less than a year ago, after all, he stood in Riyadh and denounced the “interventionists” who had “wrecked” the Middle East. And they can read the polls in America, which show a majority opposed to the war and the president’s approval rating stuck at 38%.
For the restrainers, then, joining the war seems an unacceptable risk: Gulf states might paint a target on themselves only to watch America pack up and leave soon after. A few officials muse about setting up a coalition like the one that fought Islamic State a decade ago, as a way to bind Mr Trump and draw in other allies. But that seems a hard sell with a president who is not fond of multilateralism.
At the same time, trust in Iran—never high—has evaporated. Saudi Arabia and the uae laboured for years before the war to improve their once-hostile relations with the Islamic Republic, while Qatar has long maintained friendly ties with it. All were attacked anyway. To more hawkish voices in the Gulf, restraint looks naive. It has not shielded them so far. As the war continues, Iran will probably keep escalating its attacks. Conciliatory messages from Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, and other officials have proved worthless.
They also worry about what happens when the war ends. Even assuming the country remains intact, Iran will presumably remain under onerous American sanctions and the regime may have billions of dollars in damage to contend with. It could seek to extort the gcc by keeping up a trickle of drone attacks or continuing to harass ships in the Persian Gulf. Those who argue for taking action now reckon it is better to try to create some deterrence by showing Iran that Gulf states can hit back, at a moment when America is still focused on their defence.
Israel’s role is another complication. On March 8th several Israeli journalists reported in unison that the uae had joined the war by attacking a water-desalination plant in Iran. Their unsubstantiated stories were attributed to an unnamed “Israeli source”. The uae rushed to deny them. “This is fake news,” said Ali al-Nuaimi, a defence official.
In private, the Emiratis were furious. Since they established diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020 they have worked to build a close partnership, one that even endured the Gaza war, when other Arab states kept their distance. Now the Israelis were leaking something that was either a closely guarded secret or an outright falsehood (and probably a war crime to boot).
Nor was it the first time Israeli journalists made such a claim about a Gulf state. Five days earlier they reported that Qatar had carried out strikes in Iran. That too was denied. “It’s a dirty game,” says an official from a third Gulf country, who thinks Israel is trying to create a fait accompli by leaking reports of supposed gcc military action. This is becoming a widely-held view in the region. It is making even some interventionists uneasy.
The final issue is domestic. Though the Gulf states are monarchies, they cannot ignore public opinion. Bahrain is a particular worry. The island’s Shia majority has long complained of discrimination at the hands of its Sunni rulers. Mass protests in 2011 were brutally repressed by Bahraini police and armies from other Gulf states. Those grievances have not gone away. In some videos of Iranian strikes on the kingdom, the people filming can be heard cheering the attacks. Were Bahrain or other Gulf states to join the war, it might stir up fresh unrest.
The business community is starting to grumble, too. Khalaf al-Habtoor, a billionaire property mogul in Dubai, has posted several criticisms of the war on social media, accusing America of dragging the Gulf into danger, only to delete them later. His missives touch on a long-standing difference between Abu Dhabi, the uae’s capital, and Dubai, its commercial hub. The former is more comfortable with an assertive foreign policy and views Iran as a menace, while the latter would prefer to stay neutral and is often rapped by America’s Treasury for turning a blind eye to Iranian money-laundering.
For now, the restrainers seem to be winning the argument. A spectacular Iranian attack could tip the balance the other way, while a swift truce could end the debate. The longer the war drags on, the more contentious it will become.
