Yara Bataineh writes:

Just before the [Israeli-U.S.] strikes, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who had been mediating talks between Washington and Tehran, said negotiations were close to a breakthrough. Iran had accepted key U.S. conditions, including commitments not to accumulate nuclear material capable of producing a weapon and to stop stockpiling enriched uranium. That agreement would have surpassed former U.S. President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, long a goal of current U.S. President Donald Trump.

What appeared to be a diplomatic breakthrough was abruptly sidelined. Instead, the Gulf was confronted with public criticism from U.S. politicians, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, who openly scolded Saudi Arabia for not participating in a war it had sought to avoid. Graham’s statements were widely rejected across the region, drawing criticism from commentators and influential voices who viewed his threats as an affront to Gulf state sovereignty.

Discontent within the Gulf is no longer confined to private conversations. Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief with deep ties to the West, publicly blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the confrontation. “This is Netanyahu’s war,” he said in one recent interview, highlighting the frustration amid Saudi political elites. Emirati officials have likewise stressed that their territory should not be used to launch attacks on Iran and have called for urgent de-escalation, alongside the broader Gulf.

Such statements reflect a deeper concern across the region. The American military architecture that dominates the region increasingly appears to constitute less of a shield than a magnet for conflict, leaving Gulf officials to question both the durability and relevance of such partnerships.

For decades, Gulf rulers justified hosting foreign bases as the price of security. But as the region absorbs the fallout of a war that it did not start and actively lobbied against, that bargain increasingly looks like entanglement rather than protection. [Continue reading…]