CNN
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Fearing the impact of Iran’s entire regime collapse, Gulf Arab countries strengthened their outreach to the Trump administration and Tehran last week.
Amid concerns that Iran’s instability could affect the region, top officials say the United Arab Emirates, a US ally that has long opposed Iran’s unsupervised nuclear program, has been in touch with officials in Tehran and Washington.
“We are following the situation very closely… our diplomacy works hard like many other countries,” Anwar Gargash, adviser to the UAE president, said on Friday. “Concerns need to be resolved diplomatically. There are many issues in the area (and) if you choose to tackle everything with a hammer, nothing will remain unbreakable.”
Israel launched an unprecedented attack on Iran last week, killing its top military brass and several nuclear scientists, destroying parts of its nuclear program. Iran responded with a barrage of missile attacks on Israeli cities.
Ghagash, who in March sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to talk about nuclear weapons, said military escalation into the conflict was “harmful” to the region as a whole.
“This is bringing us back. The language of conflict is overwhelming the new language of de-escalation and economic prosperity in the region,” Gargash said.
Across the Gulf, rising unrest over conflict has encouraged efforts to prevent further escalation.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke with Trump and called for a de-escalation after Israel struck Iran on June 13th.
“We have conducted all possible communications between all the local and overseas stakeholders. These consultations were to find a way out of the rabbit hole when it comes to this escalation,” Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesman Al Ansari said on Tuesday.
Last month, Trump was troubled by a grand welcome and trillion dollar deal when he visited three Gulf Arab countries for his first presidential visit of his second term. At the time, Trump praised the “birth of the modern Middle East” and expressed his intention to sign a contract with Iran to prevent the construction of a nuclear bomb.
However, after Israel attacked and killed Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists, Trump shifted his rhetoric and bullyed the possibility of US military intervention against Iran.
The president’s threat has made his Arab allies worried and fears Iran’s retaliation attacks against the United States in their soil where the United States has a serious military presence. The Gulf states, the major energy exporters, also fear that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz on the south shore where a third of its coast passes.
Long-standingly critical of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the Middle East’s proxy militias, Gulf Arab countries have in recent years eased their stances towards Tehran and mitigated them to avoid conflicts towards diplomacy and reconciliation.
Experts warn that US attacks on Iran can draw you into a muddy quagmire that is even more difficult than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Iran is big and can be broken and divided along ethnic lines (and that) has a substantial stockpile of missiles, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles).
“I don’t think anyone wants to see Iran glide in chaos. I think there’s a broader desire and preference to deal with one bad actor, not multiple bad actors,” he said.
Firas Maksad, managing director of the Middle East of Eurasian Group, told CNN that Gulf Arab countries are in a comfortable position to see Iran weakening, but prefer diplomacy to avoid instability in the region.
“If there is actually a diplomatic breakthrough, if Iran’s nuclear ambitions for nuclear weapons are at least kept at the upper limit, Iran will be much weaker and more stable, which is a very positive outcome for the Gulf states,” he said.
“But I have to say that the concern is that (Israel Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu will drag the region down and perhaps drag President Trump into further escalation, robbing Iran’s ability to export oil,” he added. “It could take us in a much more negative direction in terms of blowback to Gulf (oil) facilities.”
Trump’s announcement on Thursday in the two-week diplomacy window now provides breathing space for his Gulf Arab allies to drive escalation after an unprecedented regional clash that rattles the Middle East on the edge.