Avoiding the next War – Gulf populations have begun to question the value of hosting U.S. bases

Israel and the United States may have launched the war on Iran. But it is the Gulf Arab states that have borne the brunt of Tehran’s response. Since February 28, the Islamic Republic has rained down missiles and drones on Gulf hotels and airports. It has hit their oil and gas infrastructure. National energy companies in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar have declared force majeure because they cannot fulfill their contractual obligations, ‘Foreign Affairs’ notes.

For the Gulf countries, this conflict has been a reckoning. Although they are not saying it publicly, the war has caused leaders throughout the region to reassess their relationship with United States and its president, Donald Trump. Many Gulf monarchs had welcomed the reelection of Trump because they liked his transactional foreign policy style.

But in this round of fighting, the warnings of Gulf leaders have gone unheeded. In the months before, they argued against opening a new round of conflict with Iran and urged Trump to keep negotiating with Iranian leaders. Yet despite personal visits from the Saudi crown prince, Emirati leaders, and other regional officials, Trump went ahead with the attacks. He ultimately gave more weight to the wants of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who long desired a major joint and decisive operation against Iran.

Gulf leaders are increasingly aware that Trump’s unpredictability can be dangerous and that U.S. desires often clash with their own. But pivoting away from the United States won’t be easy. There is no other country that can replace it: Gulf leaders’ cautious outreach toward Iran, for example, failed to stop Tehran’s attacks, and their quiet cooperation with Israel didn’t prevent that state’s officials from upending the entire region.

To create a new regional equilibrium

Gulf countries must try to claw back some autonomy. To do so, the countries’ leaders ought to quickly coalesce around a strategy designed to limit escalation, maintain flexibility, and protect economic growth so they can sustain their domestic agendas. They will have to move beyond their earlier strategy of managed hedging — or relying on the United States while selectively engaging with Iran and Israel — and instead create a new regional equilibrium. They will need to set up new channels for diplomacy between the region’s competitors. And they will have to form better and more durable regional partnerships with countries that are not the United States — and create stronger linkages among themselves.

There is much about the present Middle East that is alarming to Gulf leaders. But Israel’s growing aggression is of particular concern. In the past, some regional officials — namely, the Emiratis and Bahrainis — saw their Israeli counterparts as useful security and economic partners. But Israel has now thrown all caution to the wind and become a destabilizing actor. Its refusal to engage meaningfully with Palestinian aspirations for self-determination has prompted unrest in the past, and it almost guarantees more violence in the future.

Next Gulf war

Israel also remains continuously committed to weakening Iran, and it does not seem to care whether Arab states are attacked in the process. In fact, it has been willing to strike them to pursue its aims.

A few weeks after the attack, Trump issued an executive order committing the United States to Qatar’s defense, with the goal of reassuring Gulf states that they would not become collateral damage on Washington’s watch. But such a commitment did little to protect Gulf countries when Israel and the United States launched their next war on Iran just a few months later. Washington has helped intercept some of Iran’s attacks against Arab countries, but it has largely prioritized defending Israel. The Gulf states are thus suffering under a barrage of Iran’s drones and missiles. They cannot move their products through the Strait of Hormuz, and they have lost their reputation as a commercial safe haven.

Gulf countries depend on U.S. equipment, such as Patriot and THAAD missile defense systems, to protect themselves, so they need to appeal to Washington for resupply, command networks, training, intelligence, and logistics. Gulf countries also rely on (and host) multiple major U.S. military bases. The United States thus retains full control over whether, when, and how its security commitments are applied. Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have all been designated by U.S. officials as “major non-NATO allies,” which confers privileges, such as the eligibility to borrow U.S. military equipment or buy certain munitions. But Gulf states get little say in the policies that affect their security and economic stability.

Gulf populations have begun to question the value of hosting U.S. bases.

Who asks Gulf populations?

The Gulf also does not want Israel to be the region’s dominant player. Gulf states are disturbed by Israel’s growing willingness to wage war, which has spillover effects. The country’s war in Gaza, accelerating annexation of the West Bank, and ongoing ground offensive into Lebanon — in which Israel has taken 30 percent of Lebanese territory and displaced one million people — have all put Gulf governments under considerable domestic political pressure to denounce Israel. For Gulf leaders, managing relations with Israel thus requires a careful balance of maintaining channels of communication while discouraging behaviors that risk continuously destabilizing the wider region.

The era in which Gulf states could rely on external powers to manage regional security is coming to an end. To protect their interests, they will need to build collective capacity, manage rivalries, and shape the balance of power themselves. Such measures may not stop the current war, which is being dictated almost entirely by Iran, Israel, and the United States. But Gulf states can shape the environment in which the conflict’s consequences unfold, and they can help prevent the next conflagration.

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