Saudi Arabia and UAE ‘inching toward’ joining fighting against Iran — report |
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are reportedly moving closer toward actively joining the fight against Iran, as the war in the Middle East threatens their economies.
According to the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, the Gulf states are “inching toward” a more active role, after Riyadh allowed US forces to use an air base within its borders.
A source familiar with the decision cited by the news outlet said it is “only a matter of time” before Saudi Arabia enters the war, after its foreign minister said last week that its patience for Iranian attacks “is not unlimited.”
Ahead of the war, Riyadh initially attempted to stay out of the impending conflict by refusing to allow its airspace to be used by US forces, though Iran launched missiles at the kingdom anyway.
After Israel and the United States launched the war with an attack on Iran on February 28, Iran responded not only against its attackers but also against all six Gulf Cooperation Council countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The repeated strikes have killed several people and disrupted oil and gas production as well as tourism, both of which are important economic lifelines for the region.
Iran has also imposed a de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas normally flows, sending crude oil prices soaring.
Now, despite initial opposition to the use of force, Gulf countries are pressing the US to continue striking the regime to ensure that Iran comes out of this war with its military power sufficiently degraded to cease posing a threat to them, four senior officials representing different Gulf capitals told The Times of Israel last week on condition of anonymity.
The countries have not yet carried out any attacks themselves, as Gulf leaders remain deeply fearful of triggering a broader, uncontrollable conflagration.
While the Gulf countries share a common anger at Iran, they are also irate that they are unable to influence the Trump administration’s policies despite their substantial investments in their relationships with Washington, Arab officials told the Journal on Tuesday.
The countries had mistakenly believed that they were successful in convincing the US to prevent attacks on Iranian energy sites, after an Israeli strike on fuel depots in Tehran, the Journal reported.
However, Israel last week carried out another strike on the South Pars gas field, and the Gulf countries faced attacks on their key energy facilities in retaliation.
US President Donald Trump insisted that he knew nothing in advance about the Israeli attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field, while Israeli officials said the strike had been coordinated with the US. Netanyahu, for his part, said Israel “acted alone.”
Israel launched its campaign against Iran, alongside the US, to degrade the Iranian regime’s military capabilities, distance threats posed by Iran — its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and its support for terror proxy groups in the region — and “create the conditions” for the Iranian people to topple the regime, the military and other Israeli leaders have said.
Jacob Magid and Reuters contributed to this report.
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