Trump’s Gulf Allies Do Not Want Him to Bomb Iran

 

news analysis

Trump’s Gulf Allies Do Not Want Him to Bomb Iran

 

While several of the Gulf Arab countries harbor little love for Iran, they worry that the consequences of rising tensions could blow back on them.

 

Vivian Nereim

By Vivian Nereim

Reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/world/middleeast/gulf-trump-iran.html

Jan. 14, 2026

 

President Trump’s powerful Gulf Arab allies fear the repercussions of a potential American strike on Iran, and some of them are publicly and privately lobbying his administration to choose diplomacy instead.

 

As protests convulse Iran and the government wages a violent crackdown on demonstrators, Mr. Trump is exploring whether to attack the country, in what he has described as an effort to deter its leaders from killing more of its own people. He has also weighed diplomatic options. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he had been “told that killing in Iran is stopping, has stopped.”

 

Even Gulf governments that have engaged in indirect conflict with Iran — such as Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia — do not support American military action there, according to analysts who study the region.

 

That is partly because the monarchies of the Gulf worry that the ripple effects of escalating U.S.-Iran tensions, or possible state failure in Iran, would harm their own security, undermining their reputation as regional safe havens for business and tourism.

 

 

But it is also because some Gulf governments have come to see Israel, Iran’s archenemy, as a belligerent state seeking to dominate the Middle East. They believe that Israel could pose a greater threat to regional stability than an already weakened Iran does.

 

“Bombing Iran goes against the calculus and interests of the Arab Gulf States,” said Bader al-Saif, an assistant history professor at Kuwait University. “Neutralizing the current regime, whether through regime change or internal leadership reconfiguration, can potentially translate into the unparalleled hegemony of Israel, which won’t serve the Gulf States.”

 

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The Sultanate of Oman, which often serves as a mediator between Iran and the United States, has advised the Trump administration against striking Iran, a person briefed on the talks said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid disrupting delicate diplomacy.

 

Qatar is also among the countries attempting to defuse the situation peacefully, the spokesman for Qatar’s foreign ministry, Majed al-Ansari, told reporters on Tuesday.

 

“The big challenges in the region — and we are talking about internal and external challenges in different countries — require all of us to return to the negotiating table,” Mr. al-Ansari said.

 

An American military base in Qatar was struck by Iran in a retaliatory attack against the United States last year after U.S. forces bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities — the most recent example of the blowback that Gulf countries fear.

 

As a precautionary measure, the U.S. military has ordered an unspecified number of nonessential personnel to start evacuating from that base in Qatar, according to two U.S. military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

 

Several Gulf countries expressed dismay over the American attack on Iranian nuclear facilities last year, while stopping short of condemning the United States, their main ally.

 

Yasmine Farouk, the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula project director at the International Crisis Group, said that Gulf countries are worried about “the chaos that a regime change in Iran would cause in the region” and how Israel might use “that vacuum.”

 

Israel carried out a brazen attack in Qatar last year, in a failed attempt to assassinate senior Hamas officials. The Israeli strike rattled Gulf governments not only because many have been courted by Israel as potential allies in recent years, but also because they, like Israel, had long regarded the United States as their main security guarantor. Soon after the Israeli attack, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, sealed a security pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan.

 

The six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council — a loose union that includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain — take differing approaches toward Iran, their neighbor across the Persian Gulf.

 

Kuwait, Oman and Qatar have relatively friendly relations with Iran — even after Iran’s limited attack on Qatari soil last year. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have more antagonistic relations. Iran-backed militias have waged attacks in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates in the past.

 

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince once compared Iran’s supreme leader to Hitler and pledged that if Iran obtained a nuclear weapon, his country would follow suit. Still, in recent years, Prince Mohammed has tried to calm regional tensions to focus on his domestic economic agenda. In 2023, he restored the kingdom’s diplomatic relations with Iran after a seven-year split.

 

The Emirati government has a particularly complex position toward Iran. Its leaders are wary of the security threat posed by Tehran, and in recent years have formed close ties to Israel, a move that shattered decades of Arab consensus.

 

Yet the Emirates stands to lose from escalating tensions with Iran, too. Dubai, the largest Emirati city, has long served as a key port for trade with Tehran.

 

After Mr. Trump announced that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on U.S. trading partners that also trade with Iran, the Emirati trade minister said that his country was still trying to parse how that would affect them.

 

“We are the second-largest trading partner with Iran, and it is one of the main providers and suppliers of many of our commodities, especially food products,” Thani al-Zeyoudi, the trade minister, said at a conference on Tuesday, the Emirati newspaper The National reported.

 

Vivian Nereim is the lead reporter for The Times covering the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. She is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.