WASHINGTON (AP) — Gulf allies of the United States, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are urging President Donald Trump to continue prosecuting the war against Iran, arguing that Tehran hasn't been weakened enough by the monthlong U.S.-led bombing campaign, according to U.S., Gulf and Israeli officials.
After private grumbling at the start of the war that they were not given adequate advance notice of the U.S.-Israeli attack and complaining the U.S. had ignored their warnings that the war would have devastating consequences for the entire region, some of the regional allies are making the case to the White House that the moment offers a historic opportunity to cripple Tehran’s clerical rule once and for all.
Officials from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain have conveyed in private conversations that they do not want the military operation to end until there are significant changes in the Iranian leadership or there’s a dramatic shift in Iranian behavior, according to the officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The push from the Gulf nations comes as Trump vacillates between claiming that Iran's decimated leadership is ready to settle the conflict and threatening to further escalate the war if a deal is not reached soon.
All the while, Trump is struggling to rally public support at home for a war that's left more than 3,000 dead across the Mideast and is s haking the global economy. Yet the U.S. leader is sounding increasingly confident that he has the full support of his most important Mideast allies — including some that were hesitant about a new military campaign in the lead-up to the war.
“Saudi Arabia’s fighting back hard. Qatar is fighting back. UAE is fighting back. Kuwait’s fighting back. Bahrain’s fighting back,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday evening as he made his way to Washington from his home in Florida. “They’re all fighting back.”
The Gulf countries host U.S. forces and bases from which the U.S. has launched strikes on Iran, but have not joined the offensive strikes.
Gulf allies support the war to varying degrees
While regional leaders are broadly supportive now of the U.S. efforts, one Gulf diplomat described some division, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE leading the calls for increasing military pressure on Tehran.
The UAE has emerged as perhaps the most hawkish of the Gulf countries and is pushing hard for Trump to order a ground invasion, the diplomat said. Kuwait and Bahrain also favor this option. The UAE, which has faced more than 2,300 missile and drone attacks from Iran, has only grown more irritated as the war grinds on and the salvos threaten to tarnish its image as the safe, pristine and monied hub for trade and tourism of the Mideast.
Oman and Qatar, which historically have played the role of intermediary between the long economically isolated Iran and the West, have favored a diplomatic solution.
The diplomat said Saudi Arabia has argued to the U.S. that ending the war now won’t produce a “good deal,” one guaranteeing security for Iran’s Arab neighbors.
The Saudis say an eventual war settlement must neutralize Iran’s nuclear program, destroy its ballistic missile capabilities, end Tehran’s support for proxy groups, and also ensure that the Strait of Hormuz cannot be effectively shutdown by the Islamic Republic in the future as it has during the conflict. About 20% of the world’s oil flowed through the waterway before the war.
Achieving those goals would require a sharp course correction by the theocracy that has been in charge of the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution or its removal.
Senior Emirati officials, meanwhile, have become more pointed in their rhetoric toward Iran.
“An Iranian regime that launches ballistic missiles at homes, weaponizes global trade and supports proxies is no longer an acceptable feature of the regional landscape,” Noura Al Kaabi, a minister of state at the UAE’s Foreign Ministry, wrote in a column published Monday by the state-linked, English-language newspaper The National. She added: “We want a guarantee that this will never happen again.”
The White House declined to comment for this story about the deliberations with Gulf allies. But Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday underscored that the U.S. and its Gulf Arab allies are in sync about Iran.
“They are religious zealots who can never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future,” Rubio said of Iran in an appearance on “Good Morning America.” “And all of their neighbors know that, by the way, which is why all of their neighbors have been supportive of the efforts we’re conducting.”
Saudi crown prince urges US not to let up
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto leader, has told White House officials that a further defanging of Iran’s military capabilities and clerical leadership serves the long-term interest of the Gulf region and beyond, according to a person who has been briefed on the conversations.
Still, the Saudis are sensitive to the fact that the longer the conflict goes on the more opportunity Iran has to carry out strikes on the kingdom’s energy infrastructure, the heartbeat of its oil-rich economy.
A Saudi government official underscored that the kingdom ultimately wants to see a political solution to the crisis, but its immediate focus remains safeguarding its people and critical infrastructure.
Trump, in recent days, has sought to spotlight that most of the Gulf countries have stood in lockstep with his administration as the U.S. prosecutes the war, noting how they’ve coalesced in the thick of crisis as he criticizes NATO allies for not joining the U.S. in the fight.
On Friday, he heaped praise on Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates for showing “bravery” as the war has unfolded.
The president, speaking at an event in Miami sponsored by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, was particularly effusive about the Saudi crown prince, hailing him as a “warrior” and a “fantastic man.”
Trump also alluded to the fact that the Gulf countries were hesitant about his and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to launch the war, but have since rallied.
“They weren’t thinking this was going to happen, nobody was,” said Trump, referring to Iran launching thousands of retaliatory salvos around the Gulf. “And they turned against them and really became very powerfully aligned. And they were with us, but they weren’t with us very obliquely. They were with us.”
Will Gulf allies join the fight?
Trump has yet to call on Gulf nations to take part in offensive operations.
One factor may be that the administration might have calculated that it’s not worth the complications that come with crowding the skies with additional militaries beyond Israel.
Three American fighter jets were mistakenly downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire in the first days of the conflict in the midst of an Iranian air assault. All six crew members safely ejected from the F-15E Strike Eagles.
And six American service members were killed on March 12, when their KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq.
Another factor is that only UAE and Bahrain are among the Gulf states that have formal diplomatic relations with Israel, adding a layer of complication to their calculus, notes Yasmine Farouk, the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula project director at the International Crisis Group
But Iran has warned it will attack its neighbors' critical infrastructure, including desalination plants used to provide drinking water to the region, if Trump follows through on his threat to strike Iran's power plants if it doesn't open the Strait of Hormuz by April 6.
“The absence of a clear objective, the absence of the trust that the United States is really going to go until the end and finish the jobs … it's making some of them reluctant,” Farouk said. “But if there is a consequential or mass casualty (event) in one of those countries, then it would be justified for them to become a belligerent.”
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Magdy reported from Cairo and Mednick reported from Jerusalem. AP writers Darlene Superville aboard Air Force One and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed reporting.
