Signs are mounting that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is moving closer to the option of launching a strike against Iran, while Gulf states are engaging in diplomatic efforts to keep themselves out of the circle of direct confrontation.
Anxiety has risen in several regional capitals following Trump’s talk of a “fleet” heading toward the Middle East.
Several Gulf countries have firmly rejected allowing their territory or airspace to be used in any potential military action against Iran. The U.S. news site Axios reported Thursday that the White House hosted senior Saudi and Israeli defense and intelligence officials for talks on Iran. Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman is also currently visiting Washington for meetings focused on Iran.
The Saudi Press Agency reported Tuesday that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, during a phone call, that Riyadh would not allow its airspace or territory to be used for military operations against Tehran. Meanwhile, Iran’s Mehr News Agency said Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi discussed “the latest regional and international developments” in separate phone calls with his counterparts in Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Oman, and Turkey on Wednesday evening and Thursday.
Gulf states—particularly Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman, along with Egypt—have been pressing Washington for weeks to contain the escalation. However, in the past few days President Trump has not given signs of retreating from the strike option.
According to experts who spoke to Alhurra, Gulf concerns are centered on the security and economic repercussions of a potential Iranian response to any strike. Gulf countries fear they would be the first to pay the price of any confrontation, whether through direct missile attacks, drone strikes, or actions by regional proxies, foremost among them the Houthis in Yemen.
In an interview with Alhurra, Iranian affairs analyst and writer Aref Nasser said the immediate security concern lies in the possibility that Iran, if attacked, could resort to an uncontrolled response—what he described as “blind firing.” In such a scenario, Gulf energy facilities and infrastructure would become potential targets, “either through direct Iranian tools or via proxies, which would significantly raise the cost of any Gulf involvement, even indirect, in a broad military confrontation.”
Saudi Arabia was hit in September 2019 by an attack on the Abqaiq and Khurais facilities operated by Aramco, temporarily halving the kingdom’s oil production and exposing the vulnerability of the energy sector to precision strikes.
But Gulf calculations extend beyond security concerns. Nasser argues that the Saudi position is also tied to strategic considerations. From his perspective, the traditional U.S. approach to the region has rested on a formula combining the containment of Iran with the preservation of a regional balance that prevents any single actor from achieving dominance. Any radical shift in this equation—especially one that leads to the collapse of the Iranian regime—could result in absolute Israeli supremacy, which Gulf states view as a “serious strategic imbalance rather than a factor of stability.”
He adds that Riyadh does not necessarily see the fall of the Iranian regime as serving its interests. Instead, it fears a political and security vacuum for which it currently lacks the tools to manage. This concern, he says, is linked to Saudi Arabia’s push to enhance its advanced defensive capabilities, including efforts to acquire sophisticated systems, “in search of a new deterrence balance, not a breaking point that could spiral out of control.”
The United Arab Emirates has also expressed opposition to the use of its territory or airspace in any strike against Iran. Writer Mohammed Faisal Al-Dosari says this stance carries two key implications. The first relates to sovereignty, affirming that security decisions are made domestically and are not subject to external pressure. The second concerns risk management: Abu Dhabi believes de-escalation begins by “containing tracks and then resorting to dialogue and international law, as an approach that safeguards the stability upon which development depends.”
According to Al-Dosari, Gulf states are seeking through this position to send two parallel messages: to Washington, that Gulf security is not a testing ground and that partnership does not mean an open-ended mandate; and to Tehran, that the Gulf does not seek confrontation, but will not accept the region being managed through escalation or by non-state actors.
Underlying all of this is the highly sensitive factor of the economy and energy. Iran openly indicated that one of its primary leverage points in any confrontation is the Strait of Hormuz. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that about 20 million barrels of oil pass through the strait daily—nearly one-fifth of global seaborne oil trade—along with roughly 35 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas trade.
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy deputy commander Alireza Tangsiri said Tuesday, in remarks carried by multiple media outlets, that Iran has “full surface and subsurface control” over the strait. He warned that the use of neighboring countries’ land, airspace, or waters against Iran would cause Tehran to treat them as hostile states.
Al-Dosari notes that the economy is “part of the equation, but not its sole headline.” While any escalation would raise shipping and insurance costs and put pressure on trade and supply chains, he said the UAE “does not base its decisions on short-term calculations, but on the principle that regional stability is part of its national security, and that chaos produces no sustainable benefit for any party.”
Saudi writer Shaher Al-Nahari goes even further in describing the consequences of a potential strike, arguing that it “would not be in anyone’s interest” and could drag the region into devastating losses. He warns that a war on Iran would not only mean the destruction of a country of tens of millions, but could also open the door to massive displacement, the emergence of armed groups, and instability stretching from South Asia to the heart of the Gulf.
Al-Nahari says that destroying Iran would lead only to “comprehensive destruction in the Middle East,” cautioning that the collapse of a central state the size of Iran could turn the region into competing vacuums and reproduce instability scenarios on a much broader scale.
Alhurra
Sakina Abdallah
A Saudi writer, researcher, and TV presenter
