War with Iran, The Effects on the Gulf States
Iran has now shown the Gulf states exactly what Israel has been saying for years: This regime does not threaten only Jerusalem. It threatens Doha, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Manama, Kuwait City, and every economy and shipping lane tied to this region’s stability.
After Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s South Pars gas field, Tehran answered by targeting Gulf energy infrastructure, including Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial area, facilities in Saudi Arabia, and sites in the UAE and Kuwait. Gulf states then rushed to the United Nations Human Rights Council to condemn those attacks as unprovoked assaults on civilians and critical infrastructure.
That should end the old game.
For too long, some Arab states, especially in the Gulf, have tried to live in two worlds at once. In one world, they speak publicly about restraint, de-escalation, and Israeli responsibility. In the other, they make clear through diplomacy, security channels, and strategic behavior that the Iranian regime is their problem too.
The failure of neutrality
This week exposed the cost of that ambiguity. Countries that sought distance from the war still found themselves in the crosshairs. Gulf states had assured Tehran they would not support anti-Iran operations from their territory, Reuters reported, yet Iran struck them anyway.
That is the point Israel should press, clearly and without apology: Neutrality has failed.
Iran does not divide the region into “combatants” and “noncombatants” in the way some diplomats in the Gulf still seem to imagine. Tehran divides it into targets and future targets. The regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps see Gulf energy fields, ports, desalination systems, airports, and American-linked military assets as legitimate pressure points.
The attack on Ras Laffan, one of the most important LNG hubs in the world, was a message written in fire. So were the strikes and interceptions around Saudi and Emirati facilities.
Iran dragging Gulf into war
The strategic reality is now obvious: Israel is not dragging the Gulf into a war. Iran is.
Even after these attacks, several Arab and Muslim countries gathered in Riyadh and condemned Iran’s strikes as “heinous,” while also preserving the usual regional language about Israeli actions elsewhere.
That formula may still serve diplomatic protocol. It does not serve a strategy. A country cannot condemn Iran for hitting its airports and oil facilities, ask the international community for protection, and still behave as though Israel’s campaign against the same regime is some unrelated problem.
The Gulf does not need to send divisions to the front. It does not need grand speeches or dramatic declarations. It does need to choose a side in practical terms.
That means fuller intelligence cooperation. It means stronger air- and missile-defense coordination. It means real maritime participation in protecting freedom of navigation and the Strait of Hormuz. It means closing financial, logistical, and media loopholes that Iran and its networks still exploit.
It means saying publicly, in Arabic and in English, that the regime in Tehran is the central source of this escalation, and that defeating its war machine serves Arab interests no less than Israeli ones.
Oil prices have surged, shipping has been disrupted, and Gulf infrastructure has already been hit. The choice is no longer between calm and risk. The choice is between absorbing risk passively or confronting the source of it with allies.
Arab leaders, especially in the Gulf, should stop scolding Israel in public while hoping in private that Israel and the US finish the job. If they believe, as many clearly do, that a weakened or defeated Iranian regime would make the region safer, they should start acting like it. If they believe Tehran is a danger to their citizens and economies, they should say so plainly. If they expect Washington and Jerusalem to bear the military burden, they should stop pretending they are detached observers.
History rarely offers comfortable timing. It does, however, offer moments of clarity. This is one of them.
The Gulf monarchies built modern states on a promise of order, growth, and security. Iran has attacked all three. They now face a test of seriousness. They can continue issuing balanced statements that age badly within hours, or they can join the camp that is actually trying to break the regime’s capacity to terrorize the region.
This war has already reached their shores. The only question left is whether they will keep speaking as bystanders or finally act like stakeholders
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