Eurasia Press & News
The Iran war has widened differences between Saudi Arabia, which favors accommodation with Iran and Iran-backed regional actors, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which believes military confrontation with Iran and its allies can produce transformative change.
Most of the Arab Gulf states are following Saudi Arabia’s lead by advocating for de-escalation and accommodation of some of Tehran’s interests.
Iran has targeted the UAE more than any other regional state but doing so has driven the UAE into a close partnership with the U.S. and Israel.
All the Gulf states are concerned that a prolonged conflict will set back, if not derail outright, their economic diversification programs that depend on expanding industries beyond the energy sector.
A core component of the Iranian strategy to counter Operation Epic Fury — to divide and neutralize the U.S. allies on the other side of the Persian Gulf — has registered significant successes. As a result of Tehran’s efforts, which have included direct attacks on U.S. bases in the Gulf as well as on Gulf state energy facilities and other infrastructure, the war has widened longstanding differences among the Arab Gulf states rather than unify them. All the Gulf states, with the exception of Oman, have long considered Iran a potential adversary, stemming in part from the Islamic Republic’s efforts during the 1980s to destabilize the Gulf states. For more than three decades, the Gulf states have looked to their defense cooperation agreements with the U.S. to deter Iran, or to protect their assets in the event of attack. Yet the Trump team’s difficulty in bringing the war to the conclusion Washington wants has caused Gulf leaders to question the benefits of their defense partnerships with the United States.
In recent years, and even as the Iranian threat expanded with Tehran’s development of advanced missiles and drones, the Gulf states have sought to moderate Iran’s behavior through engagement. This trend was punctuated by the March 2023 China-brokered Saudi-Iran rapprochement. But Iran’s wartime attacks on Gulf state infrastructure, intended to compel U.S. President Donald Trump to end his military campaign on terms favorable to Tehran, have revived the perception among Gulf rulers and their populations that Iran poses an enduring threat to Gulf states’ vital interests. Iran has focused much of its fire on the UAE, targeting it with more than 2,800 missiles and drones — far more strikes than any other country, including Israel. On Tuesday, Kuwait apprehended a small unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) allegedly attempting to infiltrate its offshore Bubiyan Island “with the aim of carrying out hostile acts against the State of Kuwait,” according to a statement issued by Kuwait’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Kuwaiti officials also assert that Iran-aligned militias in Iraq have conducted numerous attacks on Kuwaiti targets during the U.S.-Iran conflict.
All the Gulf states, as well as Iraq, depend on energy export revenues to fund large percentages of their national budgets. The Gulf states have been adversely affected by Iran’s closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz chokepoint, as well as by Iran’s attacks on their energy infrastructure. Yet the war has also separated the Gulf states into “haves and have-nots.” Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are able to shunt significant oil exports to pipelines that bypass the Strait of Hormuz, avenues built long ago to guard against the Strait closure now unfolding. Oman’s ability to conduct seaborne trade from its coast on the Arabian Sea is unfettered. By contrast, the oil exports of Kuwait and Bahrain, and the liquified natural gas (LNG) shipments of Qatar, have no available alternatives to shipping through the Strait.
The differential impacts of the war on the Gulf states contribute to — but does not entirely account for — their differing positions and responses to the U.S.-Iran war. Their varying responses reflect intra-Gulf state alignments, rifts, and differing interests that long preceded the Iran war. As the birthplace of Islam and the guardian of its two holiest religious sites, as well as the largest oil exporter in the region, Saudi Arabia’s de-facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), operates under a set of domestic and foreign policy constraints that do not necessarily apply to the smaller Gulf states. The participation of Israel in the war effort is one factor, among many, that discourages MBS from openly joining the war on the U.S. side.
As an expression of the Saudi position, Ambassador Dr. Rayed Krimly, the Saudi deputy minister for public diplomacy, posted on X last week: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia continues to stand in support of de-escalation and avoiding escalation, as well as negotiations and the efforts undertaken regarding them.” Saudi officials, and those of most of the other Gulf states, view a prolonged war as threatening their economic diversification programs that depend on expanding the tourism, technology, banking and finance, and real estate sectors. Even before the war, Saudi Arabia had already scaled back its Vision 2030 initiative, an elaborate investment plan inked in 2016 to spur the country’s transition into a more diverse economy. Saudi leaders also assess that a kinetic response to Iranian strikes could also draw the Houthis more directly into the conflict, threatening Saudi Arabia’s alternative oil export route to the Red Sea.
Bahrain and Kuwait have historically followed Saudi foreign policy preferences, and their calls for de-escalation in the current war align with those of Riyadh. Bahrain is bowing to the Saudi policy preference even though it has generally joined the UAE in vocally blaming Iran for regional aggression. Abu Dhabi and Manama are also joined by their membership in the Abraham Accords pact under which they normalized relations with Israel — a co-combatant against Tehran — in 2020. Qatar, which has tended to pursue an independent foreign policy, has joined most of the other Gulf states in refraining from entering the conflict with Iran militarily. On Monday, Qatar’s prime minister and Kuwait’s foreign minister jointly reiterated their call for continued diplomacy to prevent renewed escalation, highlighting “…efforts aimed at de-escalation in a way that contributes to strengthening security and stability in the region.”
The UAE has unabashedly adopted a position outside the Gulf consensus and at odds with the Kingdom. Historically, the UAE has been a close ally of both Riyadh and Washington. Both Gulf states supported the two major U.S.-led wars against the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. They assembled and led an Arab coalition that fought unsuccessfully to roll back the Iran-backed Houthi movement’s control of northern and central Yemen during 2015-2023. More recently, however, the two Gulf powers have fallen out over ongoing strategy in Yemen, the civil conflict in Sudan, and a range of related issues that predate the U.S.-Iran war.
Their differing approaches to the war demonstrate the contending outlooks and ideologies of MBS and UAE leader Mohammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan (MBZ). Reflecting the Kingdom’s historic approach to the region’s conflicts and schisms, MBS assesses that the region cannot be transformed through military or other confrontational action. He argues that only compromise and accommodation can prevent aggressive actors, such as Iran and the Houthis, from crossing the Kingdom’s red lines. MBZ, by comparison, asserts the region’s destabilizing actors must be confronted, including militarily, if necessary, in order to permanently stabilize the Middle East. By all accounts, MBZ was the driving force behind the Saudi-UAE decision in 2015 to combat the Houthis, arguing that Iran’s ability to use regional non-state actors to project power constituted a vital threat that needed to be set back.
The UAE has therefore rejected the Saudi approach to the Iran war, instead decisively aligning with the U.S. and Israel’s determination to force Tehran to accept their demands. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz confirmed Monday that the UAE has received the Israeli-made Iron Dome missile interceptor system and used it to shoot down incoming Iranian missiles, representing direct, operational defense coordination between the UAE and Israel. Last week, the New York Times reported that the UAE had conducted retaliatory strikes on Iran, including an attack on a refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf. The strike took place in early April as Trump was putting in place a ceasefire that began April 7, but U.S. officials told journalists that Washington was not upset by the UAE attack — instead welcoming the UAE participation in the fight. Some reports in recent days indicated that Saudi Arabia might also have conducted some retaliatory strikes in Iran, although less intensive than those conducted by the UAE, in the days leading up to the ceasefire. UAE leaders also championed Trump’s Project Freedom operation in early May to reopen the Strait to Gulf state and Iraqi exports, contrasting with Saudi and Kuwaiti pressure on Washington to suspend the mission out of concern for Iranian retaliation on their facilities. MBZ’s approach perhaps explains why Tehran has targeted the UAE more than any other Washington-aligned actor in the course of the war.
The UAE’s May 1 exit from OPEC, although reportedly under consideration for several years, represented a stark expression of Abu Dhabi’s disagreement with Riyadh’s approach to the war. The departure leaves only Kuwait as the lone smaller Gulf state in the cartel — an organization which many global leaders have long associated with Persian Gulf energy resources. Qatar left the group in 2019 to focus on its global leadership as an LNG exporter. The UAE’s withdrawal was intended to further weaken Iran economically, but by reducing the influence of OPEC (and the associated “OPEC+”) over the global oil market, the exit represented a blow to Saudi Arabia as well. The withdrawal furthermore reflects MBZ’s belief that, by demonstrating confidence, the UAE can overcome the economic challenges from the war. His government said in a statement last week that the country “has adopted forward-looking economic strategies that enhance its capacity to absorb any geopolitical and economic pressures…In this regard, there is no change to investment plans or long-term economic priorities.” However, the UAE departure suggests the war is deepening rivalries rather than fostering unity among Gulf powers.
