Iran and US claim victory in a war that hasn’t ended. The biggest loser? The GCC

Day 40 of the war between Iran and the United States and Israel was going to be decisive, one way or another. That is because it was the day US President Donald Trump had dubbed “Power Plant Day” and “Bridge Day.” In a series of increasingly shrill and murderous Truth Social posts, Trump had threatened to upscale the US’s bombing campaign by targeting Iran’s energy and transport infrastructure if a deal to open the Strait of Hormuz was not reached by 8 pm ET on Tuesday. Over the course of the war, the strait became a focal point for the US’s failures and Iran’s increasing leverage. It is a narrow waterway between Oman and Iran through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and natural gas flows out, from the fossil fuel-rich Gulf to the rest of the carbon-dependent world. It is this waterway that Iran, after being attacked by the US and Israel on February 28, effectively closed, exacting equal measures of pain on the global economy for each strike Israel and the US conducted on Iranian territory.  Over a month into the war, the closure of the strait sent crude oil prices skyrocketing. The US’s strategic aim before starting the war — regime change — had largely dissipated into semantic equivocations about what regime change actually means. And over the course of a week, Trump had moved from Truth Social threats of escalation to hints that he might pull out of the war altogether and leave those affected by the closure to deal with it.  Iran, in turn, threatened to retaliate by escalating the strikes it had been conducting on Arab Gulf states’ energy and transport facilities.  For a regional diplomat who holds direct negotiations with the Israelis and Americans, speaking during the Tuesday countdown to Trump’s deadline, it was clear that Trump is “stuck because [he] wants a deal. He is desperate for a deal. But he wants a deal that will help him claim victory. If he doesn’t get a deal that will allow him to claim victory, he will start conducting major strikes for a day or two and then he will claim victory. And then he will say we took them back to the stone age.” There was only one problem with Trump’s quest for a deal, however.  As the US and Israel conducted extensive strikes on Iran’s oil refineries on Kharg Island and transportation infrastructure on Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the head of the mediation team that included Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, was unable to reach his US counterpart Marco Rubio to discuss a deal for at least 24 hours, according to the regional diplomat and another former Arab official with inroads into Western and Gulf capitals.  Multiple sources close to the negotiations that spoke to Mada Masr over the course of the day expressed concern that an escalation was becoming unavoidable.  But late on Tuesday night, at the 11th hour, the Pakistani prime minister pivoted.  Instead of continuing to be stonewalled by Rubio, Sharif reached out to US Vice President JD Vance, whose opposition to the war is well known in regional capitals. According to a diplomat at a Western embassy in Oman briefed on the exchange, Sharif made a pitch for a two-week extension of the ultimatum, during which attacks would stop and the strait would be opened. Vance promised to speak to Trump and “package” the deal in a way that he could accept.  At 9:17 pm, Sharif fired off a tweet formally requesting a two-week extension of the ultimatum handed down by Trump.  Before publishing the tweet, the proposal had already been reviewed by both US and Iranian officials to agree on the language, according to the former official with inroads in Western and Gulf capitals.  With less than 90 minutes left before the deadline, Trump posted that he had agreed to “suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,” subject to the “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.”  “We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate,” Trump said.  Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi tweeted out the Iranian acceptance of the deal, saying that “If attacks against Iran are halted, our Powerful Armed Forces will cease their defensive operations.” “For a period of two weeks, safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible via coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces and with due consideration of technical limitations.”  *** The aversion of the crisis on Tuesday does not necessarily mean that there will be “longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East” as Trump claimed in his Truth Social announcement.  For one, attacks have continued into Wednesday.  An oil refinery on ‌Iran’s Lavan Island was targeted by an “enemy attack” ​on Wednesday morning, the National ⁠Iranian Oil Refining and ​Distribution Company said. Iran responded bombing Saudi Arabia’s crucial East-West pipeline, which had allowed it to circumvent the closure of the strait by diverting around 7 million barrels ​per day (bpd) from the kingdom’s oil fields ⁠in the east to the Red Sea ​port of Yanbu. The Pakistani prime minister noted that the ceasefire would also apply to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, but Israel has refused to halt the war and carried out its fiercest bombing campaign of Lebanon since the invasion of the country began on March 3. In response, Iran announced the closure of the strait. Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohamed Bagher Ghalibaf stopped just short of calling off the negotiations in a post late Wednesday night. Ghalibaf pointed to the lack of a ceasefire in Lebanon and a violation of Iran’s airspace as well as the denial of Iran’s right to uranium enrichment as breaches of the 10-point proposal Iran had submitted, underlining that a situation in which such violations occur makes a bilateral ceasefire or negotiations “unreasonable.”  But even away from the battlefield, the US and Iran will face hurdles when they sit down at the negotiating table on April 10 in Islamabad.  The central point of contention will reside on what proposal they are agreeing to, as Araghchi’s announcement notes that the US proposal consists of 15 points, while the Iranian proposal consists of 10.  While the full details of the 15-point US plan have not been published, CNN quotes regional officials noting that it is likely to include: Iran committing to no nuclear weapons, handing over its highly enriched uranium, limits on Tehran’s defense capabilities, an end to regional proxy groups, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and an acknowledgment of Israel’s right to exist. After the announcement of the ceasefire, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council released a statement outlining the 10-point plan it had submitted, which differs significantly.  “Iran has achieved a monumental victory. This has compelled criminal America to accept our 10-point plan, in which America is fundamentally committed to non-aggression, Iran’s continued control over the Strait of Hormuz, acceptance of enrichment, lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions, termination of all Security Council and IAEA Board resolutions, payment of reparations to Iran, withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, and cessation of war across all fronts, including against the heroic Islamic resistance in Lebanon,” the statement read. An Iranian diplomat speaking on Wednesday morning tells Mada Masr that Washington has not agreed to many of the points outlined in the 10-point proposal Iran submitted, saying he views the truce as a moment for both sides “to regroup and rebuild their forces.”  Iran submitted a proposal to Washington via China and Pakistan that would see only 10 to 15 ships transit the strait until the US unfreezes all of Iran’s assets, the diplomat says, but Washington has not yet agreed to the terms set by Tehran. What the diplomat is sure of, however, is that “the Strait of Hormuz will not be open in the same way as before, even after a final agreement is reached.” “If no agreement is reached during the two weeks of negotiations, the war will resume,” he adds.  An Egyptian official briefed on the negotiations in Islamabad and the former Arab official with inroads into Western and Gulf capitals are less sure that there will be a reversion to war, however. “I would say that there is no chance that Trump would want to resume the war,” the Egyptian official says. “He has a [FIFA] World Cup coming up. Public opinion in the US is increasingly frustrated with this war. He has an impeachment process that is happening even if he doesn’t care that much about it, but it is there.” “I don’t think there will be a comprehensive agreement in the end,” the former Arab official adds. “It was just that Trump wanted a way to end the war and the Iranians were willing to open the strait as a way to end the war, as that is why they closed it in the first place.” *** What to make of this war, then? An inconclusive deal with a yet unclear resolution for the crucial global passageway?  The answer, according to diplomats and officials in nearly every country touched by the war that Mada Masr has spoken to over the last 40 days, rests in how it has changed regional dynamics.  Many of these officials spoke over the course of the war, from its early days up until Tuesday night, with a few speaking to Mada Masr after a deal was finally brokered.  A common thread through all of the conversations has been that the most prominent change brought forward by the war centers on the Gulf countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and their relations with other Arab countries and the US.  Over the course of the month, positions have evolved and small alliances have coalesced over how to handle the attacks from Iran and the war launched by the US and Israel. The first to take shape was one committed to de-escalation.  Made up of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey, who are acting as mediators in an indirect exchange of messages, as much as for pragmatic voices in the Gulf in Kuwait, Qatar and Oman, this bloc has been trying to push for a ceasefire, bridging hardline positions on all sides, accepting that Iran will not disappear, trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to international tanker traffic, then trying to take stock of the fallout and containing potential social and economic fallout in their own countries. While some are skeptical that the war could prompt the Gulf to completely shift away from US-dominated defense systems, the courtship of Ukrainian anti-drone technology in recent weeks and urgings for a homegrown defense system in some Gulf quarters speak to an awareness of a need to rethink what security means. However, as the war progressed, another current began to formalize an official position by the middle of March.  This included those within the US administration and in the region, for whom it is impossible to revert to the previous state of affairs. There cannot be a return to a prewar status quo, and the answer is not to scale back but to push forward with a further military offensive that could include a ground invasion and the forced seizure of Iranian islands in the strait. In this line of thinking, such a step could have forced those in favor of a more pragmatic approach in the deescalation camp to confront difficult choices: either participate or be left out of the potential post-war division of the pie. To understand the ramifications of the war and the landscape of a potential post-war reality, it is important to look at how each of these camps has navigated these two pathways, both rife with problems, and, of course, how they navigated the most difficult obstacle of them all: the incoherency of the Trump administration. *** When Iranian, Omani and US officials walked away from the negotiating table at the close of February, there was an expectation that they would be building on the progress of talks on sanctions relief and Iran’s nuclear program the following week in Vienna. But at some point, not long after the talks ended, Omani intelligence got wind that the Americans and Israelis were shirking the next round and had decided to go to war, according to an informed source based in Doha relaying an account from three separate US State Department officials. Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi immediately boarded a flight and headed to Washington, DC to try to stave off the planned war. When he landed in the capital, he was scheduled to meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and lead negotiator Steve Witkoff.  The diplomat at a Western embassy in Oman says that Busaidi understood that the American aim in starting a war was to put someone in place who would accept their hardline negotiation terms. “They were looking for someone from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who could still be a strong man, like Ahmed al-Sharaa, but would work with them,” the diplomat says.  Busaidi had told them and was prepared to tell them again, on February 27, in DC, that the US cannot do with Iran what they did with Syria, because in Iran there is no Ahmed al-Sharaa and because Iran is a much more complicated country than Syria, the diplomat says. But the Omani foreign minister never got to make his argument. Neither Witkoff nor Rubio showed up for the meeting, the informed source says. Instead, US Vice President JD Vance arrived. “Vance told him what he personally believes: that he is against the war and that the president will not go to war,” the Doha-based source says. A little over 24 hours later, the war began.  For nearly all Gulf states, the way this war has played out is a nightmare scenario. But what makes it even worse is that it was one they warned about before the war started. Like Oman, many Gulf states voiced concern about the US’s strategic goals ahead of a planned confrontation. According to an Arab diplomat in New York in discussion with Saudi officials, the kingdom’s foreign minister warned US officials against starting a war that is open-ended. “He told them if you are not sure you’re going to be able to remove the regime, then don’t start the war. Because if the regime is humiliated, it will become much more aggressive, and it will be much more dangerous for all of us,” the source says. But before the war, and over the course of the fighting, US decision-makers have disregarded the Gulf’s concerns — and it is only Witkoff, Rubio, Jared Kushner and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth who know what is happening, even if they do not agree among themselves on what needs to be done, the Doha-based source says. Once the war started, a prevailing sentiment among many Arab Gulf officials in the US was that the Americans had decided to throw the Gulf under the bus to please Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Arab diplomat in New York says. “I say it plainly: Israel and Washington misled the Gulf states, especially since most of them decided not to participate in the war,” a Qatari political source tells Mada Masr. To contain the situation, then, several countries took immediate steps to try to bring the war to an end. Taking the lead on this front was Saudi Arabia, according to the Arab diplomat in New York who spoke directly with permanent representatives from all Gulf states in the US. “The Saudis were trying to get a United Nations Security Council resolution to end the war unconditionally as soon as possible,” the source says, speaking of deliberations in the first days of the war.  But despite these efforts, little headway was made, the source says, explaining that a resolution could not be drafted without consultations with the Americans. And at the time, anything that the Americans would have put forward as a resolution would have included points that the current Iranian regime could not agree to.  An Arab diplomat who previously served in Tehran agrees that Saudi Arabia is making a diplomatic push to bring a halt to the war. “Bear in mind that Khaled bin Salman, the Saudi defense minister, is keeping a very low profile now to give the maximum chance for diplomatic intervention,” the source says. And the diplomat as well as a researcher informed of Emirati foreign policy say that, even amid the attacks on Saudi Arabia in the first weeks of the war, the Saudis maintained back-channel communications with the Iranians to avoid escalation. “The Saudis have already opened their diplomatic channels not just with Tehran, but with the Iranian arms all over the region, including Hezbollah,” the diplomat says. Beyond the obvious security threats of Iranian missiles and drones hitting key infrastructure in the Gulf, the driving force for Saudi Arabia to avoid becoming entangled in the war and have it end as soon as possible was at least twofold.  First, as a Saudi political source tells Mada Masr, greater involvement in the war would only damage the Gulf’s economic status. While other political actors might grandstand for direct Gulf involvement, the source says that Saudi Arabia will remain judicious and “has not and will not decide to respond” at the risk of damaging its status as “one of the region’s important economic hubs.” Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwy, Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), during a meeting with the United Nations Security Council, April 2. - Courtesy: UN Arabic on X The second immediate concern for Saudi Arabia was a longstanding threat perception: Shia communities in the Gulf that the kingdom reads as linked to, or sympathetic with, Iran’s Shia regime.  “The Saudis in particular are very scared because they have a sizable Shia community, and this Shia community already has lots of grievances,” the Arab diplomat in New York says. To address this concern, Saudi Arabia deployed security forces to Bahrain almost immediately after the war started, according to the same diplomat and a Bahraini parliamentarian. The Saudis must constantly intervene to protect the Sunni-minority royal family of Bahrain, the source says, “because Bahrain is weak and has major fears. And with the Iranian strikes, this leads to even more fears. And Saudi Arabia also has major concerns. That’s why it sent forces immediately after the strikes. [On February 28], after midnight, Saudi forces entered Bahrain.” The diplomat in Oman argues that this concern was not Saudi Arabia’s alone. “The Gulf is very afraid of the total chaos that will threaten Gulf capitals. For them, this is a political matter, not just a security issue. It goes beyond the fear of strikes. It could undermine the stability of some of the gulf regimes.” But one of the fundamental problems of the war is that, while the Gulf was being pushed together by an external threat, there were existing tensions within the GCC, which the war only served to heighten, making negotiations difficult. In recent months, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had been plunged into a bras de fer in Yemen over the UAE’s support for the Southern Transitional Council (STC), laying bare years of simmering tensions within the country’s presidential council, a political compromise between pro-Saudi and pro-UAE Yemeni politicians. While the Saudis made a swift push to seize territory from STC factions loyal to the UAE, the kingdom struggled to find a plausible path forward for the country. The conflict took on a wider scope, prompting Saudi Arabia to rhetorically assert a re-engagement on the regional level, where Riyadh criticized what it described as the UAE’s “separatist” ambitions in Sudan, Libya and the Horn of Africa. However, in none of these arenas did this rhetoric translate to a much talked about “strategic realignment” in the region.  The projection of Saudi hegemony was tied to political fields  where the US played an active role and the Emiratis were present. In Sudan, where Saudi Arabia and the UAE are both members of the US-led Quad initiative, the Saudi-American proposal for a ceasefire did not ultimately differ significantly from the accepted status quo partition of Rapid Support Forces-held territory that the Emiratis were keen to uphold.  So while the two sides were nominally opposed, outside of Yemen, they did not have to traverse the major political fault lines that the war on Iran was to bring to the foreground. Even in the early days of the war, the divisions within the Gulf, led by the two strongest players, quickly became apparent. In early March, Egypt’s embassy in Washington reached out to Gulf diplomatic missions in the US capital to hold a meeting on the war.  An Egyptian official told Mada Masr at the time that the purpose of the meeting was “to formulate a position to stop a war.” “We are talking to everyone, especially the Gulf countries, to find something that will work for everyone, and then we will go to the Americans and say that this is the Arab position to stop the war. And we need to find a way to stop the war or everyone will pay a high price. The stakes are very high,” the official said. However, the sought after “Arab position” quickly devolved into division.  “The result [of the meeting] was that nothing was agreed to,” the diplomat in Oman tells Mada Masr. “There are so many different views, not just between GCC and non-GCC countries, but even within the GCC countries. Some of the GCC countries said that since the war started, it might as well continue to reach its objective: a regime change in Tehran. And there, again, there is no consensus on what the Arab countries need to offer as their requirements for regional stability on the day after the war, whether the regime falls or whether it lasts in a different version.” Speaking to the substance of some of the disagreements, the Arab diplomat who formerly served in Tehran described two main camps within the GCC.  First, “you have Kuwait and Oman who are actually both trying to get out of this fight, but in the meantime, they are also trying to negotiate,” the source said. “And you have Saudi Arabia and Qatar who really want to end the war, especially the Saudis who are sending messages to the Iranians that they want to help end the war.” Then, there is another bloc, the Emirates and Bahrain, who the diplomat described as actively pushing for the war to escalate. “The UAE is pushing for this war to continue as long as possible until the regime in Tehran is so weakened that it would take decades for it to be able to rebuild its capacity,” the researcher informed of Emirati foreign policy says.  Bahrain, in turn, petitioned for the UN Security Council to authorize a military intervention in Iran under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which grants the international body the right to authorize military action to maintain or restore international peace and security when threats, breaches of peace or acts of aggression occur.  “They tabled a draft proposal for Iran to come under sanctions under Chapter VII. They want prompt, immediate and conclusive military intervention with Arab forces. They want Arab forces, with Gulf representation, to take over the operation of the Strait of Hormuz,” the Arab diplomat in New York said. Despite the draft going through numerous revisions that removed any language that would sanction an offensive military operation, Russia and China vetoed the measure put to vote on Tuesday.  Abdul Latif bin Rashid al-Zayany, Bahrain’s foreign minister and president of the UN Security Council, during the vote on a draft resolution submitted by Bahrain to secure the Strait of Hormuz, April 7. - Courtesy: UN Web TV The divisions became so stark over the course of the war that the Saudis began holding direct and exclusive talks with the Americans at the highest level because they did not want the Emiratis to be informed of these talks, the Arab diplomat in New York says.   Saudi Arabia also joined indirect negotiations held in Pakistan to try to find a way to end the war alongside Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and the host country. *** Those intent on de-escalation and a negotiated settlement faced a key question in their calculations: How can you live next to a country that has just directed missiles and drone swarms at you for over a month?  The answer for Gulf countries adhering to this track centers on a negotiated settlement that acknowledges that the Iranian regime is not going anywhere and finds ways to reimagine their security infrastructure. Would that mean a pivot away from the US as the main security provider? For the diplomat in Oman, it is clear Gulf states must think seriously about this question. “The Gulf has been dependent on the US for its security since the invasion of Kuwait and now they need to question the validity of this alliance,” the diplomat says. The Arab diplomat previously based in Tehran agrees. “You have to keep in mind that the Americans were standing there watching when their embassy in Saudi Arabia was being attacked by the Iranians. So, the Saudis are not just very worried about what’s going to happen, they are worried about what’s happening already and the lame American reaction to this,” he tells Mada Masr.  Six sources — a Qatari political source, a Saudi diplomat, a regional diplomat who holds regular talks with the Americans and Israelis, the diplomat in Oman, an Egyptian official informed of mediation talks that have played out around Pakistan and the Arab diplomat formerly stationed in Tehran — say that a key aspect that Gulf states committed to negotiations want in a deal is a new security regime. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani meet in Doha to sign a defense cooperation agreement which includes ​the exchange of expertise in countering missiles and drones, March 28. - Courtesy: Reuters That could come from the US, according to the diplomat in Oman and the regional diplomat.  The regional diplomat says some Gulf countries are talking about expansions of the bases hosting US forces in their countries, to fortify them further with early detection technology and a buildup of interceptors. But both the Qatari political source and the Saudi diplomat were less committed to the security being US-dependent. The GCC countries may begin exploring new pathways in the field of defense industries, the Qatari political source says.  The assessment regarding the search for advanced defense systems was echoed by the Saudi diplomatic source speaking to Mada Masr. Such systems would most likely be sourced from the US, China and Russia, with Gulf states expected to allocate substantial future budgets for their acquisition, because the Iranian threat remains unpredictable, especially if this regime remains in place and no fundamental solution is reached. For Bader al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University and an associate fellow at Chatham House, it is analytically wrong footed “to expect countries to jump into something more lasting just because of the crisis that we’re going through.” “Having a security architecture takes time to be digested, devolved, produced. It’s not going to be an overnight exercise. That’s why we need immediate measures in place,” he tells Mada Masr. “And while both [the US and Iran] come at it from different vantage points, the basic thrust is the same for both when they say that they want a comprehensive resolution, a permanent one on all files. I agree. I think we need to look at all the files together, and that’s why we need to have all different parties part of that negotiation, and what we can strive for — not to be too ambitious — is what immediate steps can be taken to avoid us relapsing to war, whether it’s very clear non-aggression pacts or it’s very clear safeguarding of ships in Hormoz.” This interim solution, for Al Saif, will allow a slow building out toward a bigger grand strategy, which will have to contend with the “tendency to go bilateral.”  “We haven’t been the best when it comes to collective security mechanisms, whether Arab related or otherwise, which has been flagged for some time now,” he says. But, ultimately Al Saif contends that the ideal scenario would be to “go regional” or to “go local.”  “I’d rather raise my own agency as a region. But we’re not at that level in which we can be self-sufficient when it comes to our own defense needs. So, you’ll have to cooperate with other countries. That will continue. But to me, it should be part of a strategy that I build with the conditions that I put in place. We’re not there yet. There are baby steps in the UAE, baby steps in Saudi when it comes to local defense production, but those need to be beefed up and they need to be accelerated.” For the Arab diplomat formerly stationed in Tehran and the researcher familiar with Emirati foreign policy, however, there are two hurdles to a more integrated Gulf security regime that would re-instill confidence: Israel and distrust toward the UAE.  The Arab diplomat says that Gulf countries are looking for “a clear commitment from Washington that, if a prospective truce fails, Washington would act to not allow the Gulf countries to be exposed again. They want protection.” Many Gulf countries, he adds, feel they have not been getting sufficient protection from the US, and now they want a clear commitment from Washington that the truce will not be designed to spare Israel at the Gulf’s expense.  Israel’s own commitment to any truce is also dubious. When talks of Trump’s proposed plan to “end the war” made their way into the press on Wednesday night, the Israeli public broadcast network Kann downplayed substantial progress in talks between Iran and the US.  According to the regional diplomat who is in discussion with the Americans, the priority for the US was to get Iran to stop striking Israel, so they can ask Israel to stop striking Iran. Though, of course, Israel has played the spoiler before, sabotaging negotiations in the Gaza war repeatedly.  The second problem, according to the researcher informed of Emirati foreign policy, concerns intra-Gulf distrust. “Saudi Arabia will not put aside its dispute with the UAE, and therefore there is no chance that Saudi and the Emirates will be jointly subscribing to any collective security regime. They want a security regime of their own. And they are currently talking to the Americans about it.”  *** As talks of a political settlement continued, another possible trajectory for the war has played out: military escalation.  And for the former Arab official who served in the Gulf and maintains contacts with decision-making quarters in Western capitals, the gaps in negotiations remain too wide for much progress  toward a satisfactory truce to come about. “Pakistan will not work. There is no way. There is no middle ground to be reached,” he tells Mada Masr. “There is no meeting point for what the US and Iran want, and they are both adopting very maximalist positions. And I don’t think it is Pakistan, Turkey, the Saudis or Egypt who can convince either side to take down the bar.” The USS Tripoli amphibious assault ship. - Courtesy: US Central Command For the former official, the alternative to the diplomatic path was military intervention given the US troop buildup in the region.  While it was clear that the US and Israel would lead any further military escalation, some voices began to suggest that Arab forces join in. The idea had already been tabled by the middle of the month, according to the Arab diplomat in New York. “Some Arab Gulf countries have been proposing a replay of joint Arab forces to get into Iran,” the source said at the time. “They are insane.”  Two senior Egyptian officials and an Egyptian political insider say the UAE has proposed to Egypt that it send troops and naval forces to partake in a potential invasion of islands off the coast of Iran.  Explaining the UAE’s position, an Emirati source close to Abu Dhabi’s inner circles says the country has pledged to participate alongside allies to liberate the Strait of Hormuz. The source added that the UAE’s intention to participate in the battle alongside Washington is not only aimed at reopening the strait, but also brings back to the forefront the issue of the islands of Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunbs, which Iran has controlled since 1971. According to the source, Washington — the UAE’s primary ally, particularly after Abu Dhabi felt that friendly Arab states had abandoned it in times of difficulty — has promised the UAE that there are military options targeting up to six “Iranian-controlled islands” in the Gulf, which include airstrikes and ground operations. US control over some of the islands “held” by Tehran could provide Washington with an advanced position in Hormuz, strengthening its ability to secure maritime navigation for global energy supplies, the source adds. According to an Omani political source, Oman and Kuwait are doing everything in their power to dissuade the UAE and advise it against participating in the attack on the Strait of Hormuz. But so far, the UAE remains determined to participate in this alliance. Faced with the persistent push to sign up for the UAE plan, Egypt has categorically rejected the offer.  “This is impossible. Egypt doesn’t do this kind of thing. If we send troops to be in the maritime vicinity of the UAE, it means that these troops will be in the line of fire of Iranian strikes. What will we do if Iran targets these troops? We would have to go to war with Iran. And what would we do if these troops were hit by mistake by Israel while it is trying to target Iranian installations? We will have to go to war with Israel. This is a very complicated situation that I don’t think anyone would venture doing this,” the first senior Egyptian official says.  The official acknowledges that the offer has come with talk of incentives, financial help and economic support. But he says “such a move is not something that is compatible with the creed of the military establishment. The establishment would not do this. The establishment will not fight a war that Israel is fighting. And there is no price that would compensate for violating the military’s creed or having Egyptian soldiers killed.” A third senior Egyptian official says Egypt is in a more complex situation today than it was in the 1990s, when it participated in the Second Gulf War to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion and received over US$20 billion in debt forgiveness. “However, there are now internal and external challenges that constrain such actions,” the official says. The third official and a source informed of discussions in decision-making quarters say that as a result of Egypt’s position, the UAE is threatening to halt investments and demand the return of financial support it provided to Egypt in recent years. The Emirati source close to the ruling circle in Abu Dhabi tells Mada Masr that “the UAE is very reproachful of Arab and Islamic countries that didn’t move a muscle to defend the Gulf amid the ongoing war against it, at a time when these same countries, and the UAE in particular, stood by others through wars and crises. The GCC states will reassess their relations first with Arab countries and then with Islamic states after the current crisis subsides. There will be a thorough reckoning.” A Qatari political source said that if Gulf countries were to provide financial support to Egypt, it would be in exchange for something, but that Egypt has said it will not engage in ill-defined regional or international alliances with unclear orientation.  Facing this mounting anger, Egypt offered a counter proposal: a defensive rather than offensive joint Arab force. This came in the form of Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Atty’s mid-March diplomatic tour of Gulf capitals. The second senior Egyptian official says the visit aimed to do two things.  First, Abdel Atty was proposing activation of the 1950 joint Arab defense agreement, officially known as the “Treaty of Joint Defense and Economic Cooperation between the States of the Arab League,” and was persuading the Gulf states of the necessity of forming a joint military force for collective defense to confront the escalating security and military challenges in the region.  Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Atty meets with Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, March 17. - Courtesy: Egyptian Foreign Ministry on Facebook In the same breath, the foreign minister was tasked with ascertaining the Gulf’s stance on their deposits held at the Central Bank of Egypt, particularly those from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. UAE Political Science professor and former government advisor Abdul Khaleq Abdallah lambasted the idea in subtle jabs at Egypt. “The UAE and the Arab Gulf states have proven that they are capable of defending themselves with their own defensive capabilities and do not need the help of fragile Arab countries that are living through suffocating internal crises and cannot even defend themselves. As for the formation of a joint Arab force, it has not seen the light since 1952, and we do not need it now.” Egypt also scaled up its mediation effort to try to calm the growing row, pleading in a March 19 meeting alongside Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey to find a way to end the war. The assembled diplomats relied on Egyptian intelligence to open a channel to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to the same Egyptian official, the General Intelligence Service (GIS) used the quiet relations it has been building with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to try to make headway toward negotiations. According to the source, the GIS is currently working to persuade the IRGC on two key points: first, to halt aggression against Arab Gulf states; and second, to help craft credible guarantees on the willingness to stand down of resistance factions, particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, despite their entrenched hostility toward Gulf countries. Facing the prospect of the full disappearance of its economic lifeline amid mounting economic costs due to the war, Egypt has initiated requests for financial assistance from the US. So far, it has received at least $2 billion in import insurance financing to support its procurement of American liquified natural gas in an agreement the US Embassy in Cairo trumpeted on Tuesday.  *** While Trump’s April 1 address was reported to see him proffer an exit from the war, the US president bucked media reporting. He suggested the US might pull out of the war, as it has already significantly degraded the Iranian military and let those countries that depend on the Strait of Hormuz re-open it themselves. The former Arab official with inroads in Washington, speaking to Mada Masr on Sunday, continues to echo this sentiment. “The Americans are looking to pull out and will leave unfinished business to the Israelis,” the official says. However, in his typical mercurial fashion, the president changed his tone on Sunday morning.  “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”  US President Donald Trump arrives to speak on the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House, April 1. - Courtesy: Reuters Given that Iran’s military capabilities have not been significantly degraded, despite Trump’s claims, the US president’s escalatory language provoked fear in regional capitals.  “If Trump actually executes his all hell break loose plan on Tuesday, the Iranians will make him pay a very heavy price,” the Arab diplomat formerly stationed in Tehran says. “They will go as far as they can go. They will hit all the installations they can get in the Gulf. They will get the Houthis to close Bab al-Mandab.” The Egyptian government official informed of negotiations around the Pakistan initiative says that while the various countries have at the beginning of this week “managed to draft what could be considered a reconciliatory middle of the way proposal to end the war, the Americans were being very hardline about it. It is clearly a sign of Israeli pressure on the US.” The Egyptians and the Saudiswere trying to get Trump to extend his deadline, the Arab diplomat says. On Monday, talk of a larger 45-day window for negotiations was floated by mediators, but Iran indicated that it would accept only a permanent end to the war.  “The trouble is there is no good compromise for Trump to accept. The Iranians are winning, and Trump is losing,” an analyst on the region tells Mada Masr after Monday’s back and forth in the press. The status quo is not something that Trump could settle for, he adds. “The only way Trump could come across as having won the war is to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened. But why would the Iranians agree to reopen Hormuz and have it operated as if they’ve lost?” On Tuesday, as the US deadline approached, the US started  hitting targets across Iran, including military targets near Iran’s major oil facilities on Kharg Island, while Israel hit bridges and railway lines across the country. Tuesday’s escalation and prospect for major strikes by the US, the two previous sources and the Arab diplomat previously stationed in Tehran say, are prompting the Gulf position to evolve. On the one hand, there are voices within the UAE who are increasingly speaking out against a maximalist approach.  Speaking over a week before this week’s escalation, Al Saif said he believes that there is an inevitability of Iran-Gulf relations finding common ground again, even after everything that has happened.  “I believe that wisdom will prevail. We are going to be able to work with them. It is not a lunatic regime. They have been pragmatic in the past. Let’s not forget that they were the ones at the negotiating table and the US upended it twice. We have had difficulties with them, unfortunately. They have been meddling with our affairs, which is bad. But we need to work with it. There is no other option. They’re not going to go anywhere. We’re not going to go anywhere. That’s the one sure fact,” he says.  Now that a ceasefire is in place, however, it is not Gulf-Iran relations that will be the hardest thing to put back together, multiple sources say.  Speaking after the ceasefire deal was agreed to on Wednesday, the former Arab official with inroads into Western and Gulf capitals points to two levels of problems. First, there is the “Gulf-US scene, which is shrouded by a lot of distrust and disappointment. And except for the Emiratis who are trying to double down on relations with the US and Israel, everyone is unhappy, but they aren’t sure what to do because there aren’t many other options.” And second are relations within the Gulf itself.  Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, December 2021. - Courtesy: Middle East Online “They need a security regime for the Gulf,” the former official says. “And the Saudis will not allow for anything that does not grant them an upper hand, whereas this is not something that any of the other Arab Gulf countries will be willing to accept. For all other Arab Gulf countries, the Saudi leadership is something of the past.” “This is a very challenging moment for the GCC. This is something that they have never been through since they were established,” the former official says. “The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is the exact opposite point from today, because it was a moment of Gulf unity. Now it is a moment of Gulf disunity.”The post Iran and US claim victory in a war that hasn’t ended. The biggest loser? The GCC first appeared on Mada Masr.