Earlier this month, Elbridge Colby, a senior official in the US Department of War, held a call with Saudi Arabian Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman, who is also the brother and top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Iran’s attacks on US bases in the Gulf were heating up, and the US needed expanded access and overflight permissions. Saudi Arabia agreed to open King Fahd Air Base in Taif, in Western Saudi Arabia, to the Americans, multiple US and Western officials familiar with the matter told Middle East Eye.
The base is important because it is farther from Iranian Shahed drones than Prince Sultan Air Base, which has come under repeated Iranian attacks. Taif is also close to Jeddah, the Red Sea port that has become a critical logistics hub since Iran effectively took control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Current and former US officials tell MEE that if the Trump administration is preparing for a longer war on Iran, Jeddah may be critical for sustaining US armed forces. Thousands of US ground troops are en route to the region from East Asia.
Saudi Arabia’s decision to expand base access, current and former officials say, underscores a shift in how the kingdom and some other Gulf states are responding to the US-Israeli war on Iran.
“The attitude in Riyadh has shifted towards supporting the US war as a way to punish Iran for strikes,” a Western official in the Gulf told MEE.
Trump and the Saudi crown prince have been holding regular phone calls for the last three weeks, the US and Western officials told MEE.
The UAE has also told the US that it is geared up for a long war, putting no pressure on Washington to wrap up the conflict soon.
In a phone call earlier this month, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed told his counterpart, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, that the UAE is prepared for the war to last up to nine months, the US official told MEE.
Differing Gulf perspectives
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar lobbied US President Donald Trump against attacking Iran. While they host US military bases, the states insisted that they not be used as launchpads when the US joined Israel on 28 February to attack Iran.
Despite this, the Gulf states have paid the heaviest price for the US’s decision to go to war.
The UAE alone has intercepted 338 ballistic missiles and 1,740 drones since the start of the war.
Qatar suffered the worst attack of any Gulf state despite being a critical mediator that has consistently focused on de-escalation.
Iran responded to an Israeli attack on its South Pars gas field this week by launching missiles at Qatar’s Ras Laffan refinery. The damage will take three to five years to repair and affects 17% of Qatar’s gas production, according to Qatari energy minister Saad al-Kaabi.
Some states, like Oman, have said that Israel hoodwinked the US into launching an unlawful attack on Iran.
There is also anger at the US over its value as a security guarantor.
The US has been unable to replenish the Gulf states’ Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defence interceptors. The US bases in the Gulf, meant to protect the Arab monarchies, have been targeted. Meanwhile, oil and gas exports have ground to a halt.
Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi wrote in The Economist this week that this is “not America’s war” and that Washington’s allies needed to make clear to the US that it was dragged into a conflict with little to gain.
Busaidi’s remarks contrasted with those of Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan. After Riyadh and the port of Yanbu were attacked by Iran, he delivered a blistering message to the Islamic Republic. One former US intelligence official described it as “fighting words”.
Farhan said Iran had committed “heinous attacks” which “are an extension of [Iran’s] behaviour that is based on extortion and sponsoring militias, threatening the security and stability of neighbouring countries”.
“Saudi Arabia has repeatedly tried to extend its hand to the Iranian brothers…but the Iranians did not reciprocate,” he said, adding that the kingdom reserved the right to take “military action”.
While no one in the Gulf wanted a war with Iran, the Gulf states are approaching the conflict from varied, evolving perspectives as it drags into its fourth week, experts say.
Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the region, and like the UAE, it has ambitions to project hard power abroad.
In fact, Saudi Arabia attacked the UAE’s allies in Yemen just before the war on Iran erupted.
Oman has carved out a niche for itself as a mediator. As one of the countries least hit by Iran in the region, the relative security of its capital, Muscat, is also being noticed by expatriates leaving Dubai.
“There is a divide emerging in the Gulf,” Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, who speaks with the Saudi Arabian crown prince, told MEE.
“Saudi Arabia and the UAE were neutral before this war. But as they have been attacked, they have come to the realisation that they cannot live with this hardline Iranian regime next door, which can, at a moment’s notice, extort the region by closing the Strait of Hormuz,” he added.
The Saudi capital, Riyadh, and the kingdom’s energy infrastructure have been targeted by Iran. But the conflict is widely seen in the region, and increasingly inside the US, as an Israeli power grab. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said that Israel is guilty of committing genocide in Gaza. The Israeli war on the enclave has killed over 72,000 Palestinians since it started in October 2023.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gloated about the war in a press conference on Thursday.
He said that the solution to the Strait of Hormuz’s closure was for Arab Gulf monarchs to build new pipelines through the desert to Israel, which would effectively give Israel veto power over their energy exports.
“What’s happened in the last 24 hours is taking us to a different phase in the war. It has been testing our patience and restraint for the last three weeks,” Bader al-Saif, an expert at Kuwait University, told MEE.
“With that said, we can’t lose sight of Israel’s role. They want to bring the Gulf into this war,” he added. “And let’s be clear, there is no clear exit strategy from the US.”
Ibrahim Jalal, an expert on the Gulf and Arabian Sea security, told MEE that Gulf monarchs face a torturous balance as they try to draw their red lines against Iranian attacks and respond to US demands while pushing for de-escalation.
“The Gulf states do not want to be counted in the history books of siding in a US-Israeli war against a so-called Islamic neighbour,” he said.
Taboos broken
At the same time, Jalal said that Iran’s attacks are a flagrant violation of Gulf sovereignty and put the region into uncharted territory.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has broken all taboos now,” he said. “The Gulf needs to act within defensive doctrine,” he said.
Iran has accused some Gulf states of allowing their territories to serve as launchpads for US strikes. That is why even providing additional logistical support to the US is sensitive for Saudi Arabia.
However, the kingdom is being pressed by the US to join the war on Iran by launching offensive strikes, US and Arab officials tell MEE.
The New York Times has verified video that shows ballistic missiles being launched from Bahrain in the direction of Iran. It’s not clear who was firing the missiles. The small Gulf state is a close partner of Saudi Arabia’s.
Hesham Alghannam, a Saudi defence analyst, told MEE that Riyadh is working to “thread the needle” between getting sucked into the conflict and establishing deterrence.
“Saudi Arabia asserts deterrence by warning Tehran of retaliation as we have seen…[by] reserving military options, while prioritising diplomacy [and] ongoing backchannel contacts with Iran,” he told MEE.
He added that Riyadh is “pushing de-escalation to restore pre-war rapprochement gains without full war entanglement”.
Saudi Arabia reestablished diplomatic ties with Iran in March 2023, after years of adversarial relations, in a deal brokered by China.
Saudi Arabia has endured Iranian attacks, but has not suffered on the same scale as the UAE. The Houthis, Iran’s allies in Yemen, have also refrained from attacking the kingdom.
Abdulaziz Alghashian, a Saudi security expert and senior nonresident fellow at the Gulf International Forum, told MEE that the kingdom and other Gulf states faced “a dilemma”.
“Ending the war is generally the preferred option,” he said, but even if the conflict stopped tomorrow, Iran’s escalation dominance over the Gulf would linger.
“Not only do we really need to create deterrence, but we also need to create a precedent for post-war,” he said.
“Iran has proved that it can create a lot of havoc. Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC] states don’t want to be seen to be too restrained, so there needs to be some kind of precedent,” he said.
Alghasian said Saudi Arabia is aware that launching offensive operations against Iran could “open up a can of worms”.
Despite US claims that Iran’s military is severely degraded, the Islamic Republic has been able to conduct pinpoint strikes on US bases. It is far from isolated. Media reports say it is receiving targeting intelligence from Russia. MEE revealed that it has received air defence systems and offensive weapons from China.
Iran’s speedy retaliation on Gulf energy assets after Israel’s strike on South Pars this week showed its command and control is intact, the former US intelligence official told MEE.
Gulf monarchs are also aware that their militaries are unable to inflict any more damage on Iran than the US and Israel are currently, and that a “symbolic” action in the name of deterrence would just invite more reprisals, Jalal said.
“Action by Gulf states is not going to tip the military balance in favour of the US and its allies at this stage,” he added.
But better access to Saudi Arabian bases is key, Haykel, at Princeton University, told MEE.
“Saudi Arabia’s air force and missiles are indeed unlikely to change the equation, but what can change the equation is if the US Air Force flies out of Dhahran instead of an aircraft carrier,” he added. The coastal city is just 130 miles from Iran’s coast.
Watching the Strait of Hormuz
For starters, analysts say, the Gulf states can better arrange their defences together. This is important, as the Gulf questions the value of US security guarantees. The Trump administration has issued a waiver for Gulf states to transfer Patriot interceptors among themselves without the normal US approval.
“What the GCC now needs is to act as one bloc on the defensive line, to mobilise procurement collectively,” Jalal said.
Beyond allowing the US greater access to bases, Saudi Arabia and the UAE could look to play a role in the Strait of Hormuz, experts say.
“How do you define offensive and defensive? I think that has been the debate in the last twenty-four hours,” al-Saif, at Kuwait University, said.
“The Gulf could play the Iranian game and restrict them from moving oil out of Hormuz. But that is not part of our worldview,” he said. “We are reliable.”
The Trump administration has been rebuffed by Nato and Asian allies to participate in an operation to open the waterway, through which roughly 20 percent of global energy passes. Their involvement would allow Trump to demonstrate regional buy-in as US warplanes and attack helicopters bombard Iran’s coast.
Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the Emirati president, told the US Council on Foreign Relations this week that the UAE could join a US operation to wrest control of the waterway back from Iran.
Alghashian, the Saudi analyst, told MEE that taking “lethal defensive measures” could be next.
“For me, the precedent could be made in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Source: MEE
