Widening gulf over Iran war

As the war in West Asia enters its fifth week, with the Trump administration deploying thousands of American troops to the region for possible ground operations, the potential for fissures between Washington and the member States of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — has only increased. This remains a distinct possibility if the war expands and gets prolonged, notwithstanding Saudi Arabia and the UAE remaining open to the possibility of joining the conflict against Iran. Though Saudi Arabia’s leadership reportedly egged on US President Donald Trump to continue his military campaign against Iran, serious questions have been raised in the GCC States about the effectiveness of the security umbrella provided by the US in the face of Iran’s attacks on energy and other infrastructure.

There are also concerns about whether the security guarantees provided by hosting US military bases in the Gulf States have been overhyped as these facilities have been targeted with some success by Iran, with civilian infrastructure being impacted as collateral damage. Iran has warned of broadening its targets if the war continues. The leadership of Oman has even questioned the decision by Israel and the US to launch military strikes at a time when significant progress was reportedly made in talks brokered by Muscat between Washington and Tehran. This has not only sparked distrust about the US’s unclear strategy but also shattered a decades-old system of balance that the Gulf States managed to create with Iran that served their interests and even those of the US.

Iran’s firm grip on the Strait of Hormuz has also had a devastating impact on most GCC States, dealing a crushing blow to their hydrocarbon-dependent economies as energy shipments — their most important export — have virtually come to a halt. The conflict has also exposed the fragility of efforts by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to position themselves as stable centres of economic growth and investment as part of efforts to diversify from their dependence on oil revenues.

The dynamics that served as ballast for the close security partnership between the US and the Gulf States have been changed by the current conflict, and the fallout of this will be felt for many years even if the war were to end in the near future. This system now lies in tatters and leaves the GCC States more vulnerable than ever, whatever the outcome of the war.