Reuters reported that “Behind the scenes, resentment is mounting in Gulf Arab capitals at being drawn into a war they neither initiated nor endorsed but are now paying for economically and militarily”. They added that “At the same time, analysts say the war has left Gulf states reassessing both their security dependence on Washington and the prospect of eventually engaging Tehran on new regional security arrangements — even as trust in Iran has collapsed.” That would be the best outcome for everyone.
It was assessed here at the start of the Third Gulf War after Putin’s calls with regional leaders that one of the goals that his envisaged mediation aims to achieve is for the Gulf Kingdoms to rescind the permission that they gave the US to use their territories and airspaces for attacking Iran. That would force the US into the dilemma of defying them at the risk of rupturing their relations or acceding to this new regional military reality and then pursuing what would likely be a (Russian–mediated?) compromise with Iran.
As surreal as it may seem, Lindsey Graham of all people arrived at a very similar conclusion last week. He wrote on X, “why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?… Hopefully Gulf Cooperation Council countries will get more involved as this fight is in their backyard. If you are not willing to use your military now, when are you willing to use it? Hopefully this changes soon. If not, consequences will follow.”
The US military’s departure from the Gulf would solve three problems at once: Iran would no longer be threatened by these forces; the Gulf Kingdoms would be safer since Iran wouldn’t attack them anymore for hosting them; and the US wouldn’t have to defend partners that have proven themselves to be freeloaders. Far from the security vacuum that critics imagine would follow, the Gulf Kingdoms and Iran could begin work on a three-phased regional security plan mediated by their shared Russian partner.
The end goal is for the Gulf Kingdoms and Iran to agree to Russia’s long-proposed Collective Security Concept for the region that readers can learn more about in detail here. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also recently referenced it when articulating Russia’s official position towards the Third Gulf War and its hopes for the direction in which the region will go afterwards no matter how unlikely it might now seem to some. Two preliminary steps are required, however, which will now briefly be touched upon.
The first is what can be described as a Gulf Non-Aggression Pact (GNAP), the specifics of which remain to be negotiated but would reasonably include limits on where certain military assets can be deployed, codes of conduct, and crisis communication channels, et al. Once this is agreed to, and it admittedly won’t be an easy task, then Iran could join the Saudi-Pakistani alliance like it’s reportedly considered doing since late last year. This can then form the core of Russia’s envisaged collective security bloc.
To review, the military-political sequence that Russia hopes to mediate in the Gulf is a cessation of hostilities through a series of reasonable mutual compromises, the departure of the US military from the region, GNAP, Iran joining the Saudi-Pak alliance, and then a collective security bloc forming afterwards. Up until the Third Gulf War began, most would have dismissed this strategic vision as a political fantasy, but Reuters’ recent report suggests that this is now a realistic possibility for the region’s post-war future.
