Gulf Countries Fear Israel-Iran Spillover
"Gulf states are very much caught between a rock and a hard place," Sanam Vakil, director of the Chatham House think-tank's Middle East and North Africa Programme told AFP.
While "they are quietly applauding the further weakening of Iran they face real risks and have to play their cards carefully", she said.
Their close ties to Israel's protector Washington, which maintains military bases in the region, and their proximity to Iran -- and its missiles -- pose risks.
Vakil said that "Saudi diplomats are distancing themselves from Israel and condemning the strikes as a means to stay out of this conflict".
The unfolding situation is playing out against a recent diplomatic rapprochement Riyadh has been building with Tehran ever since China in 2023 brokered an agreement aiming to restore ties.
"This is a notable difference with the situation that prevailed in the region 10 years ago, when Saudi Arabia was sort of inciting the United States to strike Iran, calling it the 'head of the snake'," said Karim Bitar, a lecturer in Middle Eastern studies at Paris's Sciences Po university.
Indeed, as Tehran reeled from Israel's attacks and planned retaliation, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan called his Iranian counterpart and "stressed the importance of dialogue to address disputes".
"Gulf countries realise that this Israeli attack will jeopardise their economic interests as well as the entire stability" of the region, Bitar said.
That is a major preoccupation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been focusing on economic growth, giga-projects at home and diversification away from oil.
During Donald Trump's first US presidency, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had pushed for a stronger stance against Iran.
Gulf countries supported Trump's decision to pull the United States out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
But Gulf sentiment began to change after the United States failed to provide significant backing following attacks blamed on Tehran, analysts said.
A 2019 attack -- claimed by Yemen's Huthis but blamed by Riyadh and Washington on Tehran -- hit Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq processing plant and Khurais oil field, temporarily halving the kingdom's crude output. Tehran denied involvement.
The UAE too has been targeted by attacks from the Huthis that hit Abu Dhabi in 2022.
Seeking to avert attacks by Iran and its proxies, especially as they host US bases that could become targets in the wake of a broader conflict, Gulf monarchies have pursued a detente.
"The greatest concern in the Gulf now will be to what extent the United States will have to rely on their bases to assist in the defence of Israel," said Middle East analyst Andreas Krieg.
While Trump's administration has distanced itself from Israel's operation, it has warned Iran not to hit US targets in the Middle East.
"It has... drawn a firm red line, warning that any attacks on US personnel or military installations will provoke a response," Vakil said.
She added, however, that "for now, Iran is unlikely to target Gulf infrastructure or assets".
The leaders of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar last month had urged Trump, as he visited the region, to not order US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and to pursue a deal instead, according to the US news outlet Axios.
"The Gulf states had hoped that Trump would show strong leadership and would contain (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu's neo-conservative tendencies to escalate," said Krieg.
Negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme had been going on between Washington and Tehran, although with little headway.
Oman had been readying to host a sixth round of talks on Sunday, before Israel's attack threw that into doubt.
For Bitar, the Israeli strikes seemed to be trying to "torpedo" the US-Iran talks.
"What will be the US reaction? Will they maintain their blind and unconditional support for Israel, or will they try to go back to the negotiating table and reach a new deal?" he asked.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
DW
2 hours ago
- DW
For Ukraine, the Alaska summit was a complete disappointment – DW – 08/16/2025
A red carpet for Vladimir Putin and no results for Ukraine. The Alaska summit, which many had pinned high hopes on, turned out to be a complete disappointment from the perspective of many Ukrainians. During Saturday night, many Ukrainians stayed up and anxiously waited for news from the Alaska summit between US President Donald Trump and Russia's head of state Vladimir Putin. For some, there was hope the talks could lead to some sort of end of Russia's war against Ukraine. Many Ukrainians though feared the price for this might be territorial concessions Kyiv would be pressured into making. But it soon became clear that the summit in Alaska had brought no fundamental changes. "There were no concrete results for Ukraine," Oleksandr Kraiev of the Ukrainian Prism think tank told DW. "Thank God nothing was signed and no radical decisions were made," the North America expert said. "The summit was an extremely successful information operation for Russia. The war criminal Putin came to the US and shook hands with the leader of the free world." According to Kraiev, apart from "Trump's deference toward Putin, there were no final answers to the most important questions." He believes that Putin dealt with Trump "with surgical precision" and told him everything Trump wanted to hear. This way, Putin got everything he wanted out of the summit. According to Ivan Us from Ukraine's Center for Foreign Policy of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, the Russian president never wanted the summit to lead to an end to the war. Instead, Putin's goal was to legitimize himself and end his international isolation. "For Putin, having a joint photo with Trump was the goal of this summit. To show in Russia that the isolation is over, that there won't be new sanctions, and that everything is fine, so that there'd be positive impulses for the markets. And for Trump, it was a moment where he wanted to demonstrate strength. He was walking next to Putin while a US bomber flew above them, the same bomber that recently attacked Iran. This was a signal to everyone not to forget who the most important country in the world is," Us told DW. As if to confirm this, Dmitry Medvedev, chairman of Russia's Security Council, said after the Alaska summit that a "full-fledged mechanism for meetings" between Russia and the US at the highest level had been restored. "Important: The meeting proved that negotiations without preconditions and simultaneously with the continuation of the Special Military Operation are possible. Both sides directly put the responsibility for future negotiation results on Kyiv and Europe," Medvedev wrote on social networks. The term Special Military Operation is how Russia refers to its war against Ukraine. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Ivan Us thinks that the summit did not get Ukraine closer to peace. Instead, it intensified the chaos, as the US and Russia are making contradictory statements about continuing possible trilateral dialogue involving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. For example, Moscow says that Trump and Putin did not discuss a trilateral summit with Zelensky, while Washington says the opposite. Zelenskyy himself spoke of receiving an invitation to a trilateral meeting. "We support President Trump's proposal for a trilateral meeting between Ukraine, the US, and Russia. Ukraine emphasizes: Important issues can be discussed at the level of heads of state, and a trilateral format is suitable for this," he wrote on social media after a phone call with Donald Trump. Zelenskyy shared that he would meet with Donald Trump in Washington on August 18. "Ukraine confirms once again that it is ready to work toward peace as productively as possible. President Trump informed me about his meeting with the Russian president and about the key points of the discussion. It is important that US power influences the development of the situation," the Ukrainian president said. There are fears in Ukraine that Zelenskyy's trip to Washington could result in new pressure from the US on Ukraine. "Any 'no' from the Ukrainian side could be portrayed as [a] lack of willingness to end the war. Trump essentially admitted that it's about an 'exchange of territories for security guarantees,' and he confirmed that agreement was reached on certain points and spoke of a 'chance for success,'" Iryna Herashchenko, Ukrainian MP and co-chair of the opposition party "European Solidarity," wrote on social media. She believes that such formulations allow Moscow to present this as legitimization of its demands. "Putin repeated during the brief briefing once again that the actual causes of the conflict must be eliminated. This means that Moscow will not change its goals - because the existence of an independent Ukraine is seen as the actual cause," warns Herashchenko. Ukrainian political scientist Vadym Denisenko, however, believes that Russia's idea of "doing business with the US in exchange for Ukrainian territory" didn't work. Putin managed to gain time, though. "At Alaska, they agreed to negotiate," Denisenko wrote on social media. Nevertheless, he argues that Putin "lost what was most important: his maneuverability. He drastically restricted his scope for action and is actually rapidly falling into China's arms." Denisenko believes that if no results regarding the end of the war are achieved within two months, the issue will become part of Chinese-American negotiations. "In other words: A new window for negotiations will open earliest at the end of the year, realistically only in spring 2026," he predicted. Judging by discussions among ordinary Ukrainians, what angers them most is the red carpet that was rolled out for Putin at the US military base in Anchorage. Countless angry comments on social media leave little doubt over how this was perceived in Ukraine. "History always remembers not only those who kill, but also those who bestow murderers with honors. This is a special kind of shame and complicity in crime, which is too often confused with diplomacy. Today, this gallery was expanded with a new picture, with a bloody carpet and a parade of honor guard for the architect of Bucha, Mariupol, Izium, thousands of torture chambers, mass shootings, and deportations," said Mustafa Nayyem, former parliament member and ex-head of the State Agency for Reconstruction and Infrastructure.
Int'l Business Times
4 hours ago
- Int'l Business Times
Europeans Try To Stay On The Board After Ukraine Summit
For European leaders, the absence of a Ukraine deal at the summit between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump has at least one upside: They have not yet been completely sidelined in a key strategic moment for the Continent's future. "It's good news that there was no deal, for both Ukraine and the Europeans," said Alberto Alemanno, a European law professor at the HEC university in Paris. He noted a serious risk that "a new European security map" would be drawn up while Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and Europe's leaders watched from the sidelines. Europe found itself shut out of the summit in Alaska, and tried to weigh in ahead of the meeting with a flurry of calls and urgent meetings between leaders ahead of time. On Saturday, the French presidency said the leaders of Britain, France and Germany would host a video call Sunday for their so-called "coalition of the willing" to discuss steps towards peace in Ukraine. The meeting would come a day before Zelensky travels to Washington for talks with Trump -- five months after the Ukrainian leader was ambushed with a televised scolding during his previous Oval Office visit. European leaders also proposed a three-way summit between Zelensky, Putin and Trump. But it remains unlikely that Russia, hit by 18 rounds of European sanctions since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022, is ready for any thaw in its glacial relations with the bloc. Putin made his stance clear on Friday, warning Ukraine and European countries to "not create any obstacles" and not "make attempts to disrupt this emerging progress through provocation or behind-the-scenes intrigues". "Clearly, what Vladimir Putin's intention is, is to keep Europeans out and Americans in," said James Nixey, a specialist in Russian foreign policy. After a debriefing with Trump and with Zelensky on Saturday, European leaders held their own video call on their next steps. Moscow "cannot have a veto" on Ukraine joining the European Union or NATO, they said in a statement signed by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. Macron later called for increased pressure on Russia until "a solid and durable peace" had been achieved. But since the beginning of the war, European leaders "have never engaged with Putin", said Alemanno. "And all of a sudden they have to do so, without knowing exactly what are the terms of engagement," he said. "So they're a bit stuck." The risk is all the greater since Trump has clearly indicated in recent weeks that he is ready to walk away from the war, despite his campaign promise to end it within "24 hours". "Each morning when I wake up, my first thought is that we have to re-arm ourselves even faster," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the Jyllands-Posten newspaper on Saturday.
Local Germany
8 hours ago
- Local Germany
European leaders back Putin-Trump-Zelensky meeting
A statement, signed by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, insisted on maintaining pressure on Russia until peace was achieved, including through sanctions. The European leaders also insisted Moscow "cannot have a veto" on Ukraine joining the European Union or NATO. Russia has made clear it will not tolerate Kyiv's membership of the defence alliance. But the leaders said they were "ready to work ... towards a trilateral summit with European support". Friday's Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska ended without the US president extracting concrete commitments from Putin to halt Russia's invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022. "We will continue to strengthen sanctions and wider economic measures to put pressure on Russia's war economy until there is a just and lasting peace," said the European joint statement. European leaders had been uneasy over Trump's diplomatic outreach to Putin, arguing that Zelensky should have been involved in the Alaska summit. In a separate statement, Starmer praised Trump's efforts as bringing "us closer than ever before to ending Russia's illegal war in Ukraine". Macron, writing on X, cautioned against what he said was Russia's "well-documented tendency to not keep its own commitments". He called for any future peace deal to have "unbreakable" security guarantees. He also argued for increased pressure on Russia until "a solid and durable peace" had been achieved. Advertisement The European leaders welcomed what they called "security guarantees" made by Trump without giving details. A diplomatic source told AFP that Trump had offered Ukraine guarantees similar to -- but separate from -- NATO membership. "Strong security guarantees that protect Ukrainian and European vital security interests are essential," European Commission chief von der Leyen said on X. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban -- who has friendly ties with both Trump and Putin -- hailed the summit. "For years we have watched the two biggest nuclear powers dismantle the framework of their cooperation and shoot unfriendly messages back and forth. That has now come to an end. Today the world is a safer place than it was yesterday," Orban said on X.
