Saudi Arabia And Trump's Other Middle East Pals Don't Want More Escalation With Iran
After years of pushing for the U.S. to make tougher moves against Iran, some of America’s closest partners in the Middle East now desperately want President Donald Trump to take a more moderate tack.
The U.S. killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani on Friday, prompting Tehran to promise revenge and bringing the U.S. closer than it’s been in years to an outright war with the Islamic Republic. Though U.S.-aligned countries in the Persian Gulf are happy about the death of a skilled opponent, they’re also anxious that they might suffer from Iran’s response ― and that Trump won’t help if that’s the case. The anxiety, along with Iran-linked attacks since the summer that reminded Gulf Arabs how vulnerable they are, has led officials to consider how their own choices have made peace harder to achieve and what they can do differently.
If those countries shift away from confrontation with Iran, it would have huge implications for the stability of the region and its hundreds of millions of people. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have brutally fought pro-Iran forces in Syria and Yemen, and have pushed the U.S. and other Western countries to take a hawkish stance toward Iran through influential officials, paid lobbyists and sympathetic contacts in industries such as the arms trade and finance. A meaningful move toward diplomacy with Tehran would be a major shift that would make American saber-rattling more difficult.
“This is one positive consequence in all this: [Persian] Gulf countries are becoming more unified and realistic than they were before,” said Yasmine Farouk, a visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Now, she said, the nations are “asking themselves questions about whether the U.S. knows where this all is going.”
Iran responded to the Soleimani assassination with strikes on American positions in Iraq on Wednesday. Trump then announced new sanctions against the country. He said he wants to...
