Expert Explains the Iran War: If Tehran survives US-Israeli aggression, it could influence long-term Iran-Arab ties

Mistaking the message as a “surrender”, US President Donald Trump sought to drive perceived US-Israeli military advantages home by striking Iran’s oil facilities (causing a firestorm in Tehran) and the Qeshm Island desalination plant. Iran retaliated by reciprocally hitting a desalination plant in Bahrain (from where the US Fifth Fleet continues operations against Iran). Considering these developments, what effects have they had on Iran-Arab relations? 

First-order effects

All Arab states continue to seek conflict termination. A major indicator is that Gulf states, except Bahrain, have not joined the US-Israeli action against Iran so far, despite unprecedented and historic political and economic costs.

Iran’s attacks have forced Gulf energy giants such as QatarEnergy, Bahrain’s BAPCO, and Kuwait Petroleum Company to declare force majeure (a serious, unexpected event exempting fulfilment of contract), while Saudi Aramco has partially halted operations. This now risks oil being potentially set at $150 per barrel (according to official Qatari estimates) and makes it an exponentially worse crisis than even the 1973 OPEC embargo; even in 1973, the Gulf choice to drive up prices was deliberate due to the Yom Kippur War against Israel.

Insurance rates have skyrocketed owing to Iran’s threat to attack US-Israeli shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, grounding Gulf energy shipping to an unprecedented halt.

Iran has also dented the image of cities like Dubai as shining economic engines isolated from recurring regional violence. The UAE especially has borne the biggest brunt of Iranian attacks, with an acute food shortage and a looming financial crisis.

Broadly, the war has ruptured Arab trust in Washington; a microcosm of which the Israeli attack on Doha in 2025 represented. Washington ordering an unprecedented mass evacuation of Americans from the Gulf, and partially or completely shuttering most regional embassies has reinforced this.

A bust of the late Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in front of a destroyed building hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon, on March 10, 2026. Photo: AP/Hussein Malla

Across 2025, Arab states committed to massive investments in the US economy, with Qatar even gifting President Trump a $400 million Boeing 747. For these states, the US attacking Iran without any clearly achievable war aims or regard for Arab concerns, represented the first evidence of low Arab influence on Washington. The American assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei guaranteeing substantial — and not limited — Iranian strikes on Gulf territories, was the second.

The continuing inconsistency of American war aims has further infuriated Gulf capitals. This war worsens the Arab effort to stabilise the region for investor confidence: an effort already dented by Israel’s wars since 2023.

Second-order effects

Militarily, Arab states now face a Tehran that can establish regional dominance through punishment despite American security presence, even as Tehran says it attacks because of US presence. Saudi Arabia, for instance, has long been acutely cognisant of overreliance of US equipment, weak indigenous capabilities, and lack of combat experience, which has spurred Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to focus on building a new domestic military industry ecosystem.

Presently, Gulf Arab forces remain categorically underprepared. The unprecedented (presumably mistaken) Kuwaiti shootdown of three American F-15 Eagle fighter jets on March 1 exemplifies their unfamiliarity with modern wartime pressures.

Politically, since 1979, Tehran’s revolutionary outlook has presented the threat of spillover effects — the potential for Shia populations to rise against Sunni governments. Especially in Bahrain, with a Sunni royal family ruling an 80% Shia population without democratic freedoms, this risk has been potent. For perspective, the first and only time the Gulf Cooperation Council’s Peninsula Shield Force has seen action was in 2011 for precisely this concern: to put down an uprising in Bahrain during the Arab Spring. Beyond the sectarian risk, the war has also ignited long simmering anti-US sentiments across Gulf populations — fuelled further by Israel’s actions in Gaza, which Arab states officially deem a genocide.

Regionally, the US’s war has disrupted stability in several states. For instance, while Iraq (which engages both Washington and Tehran) made significant progress towards political cohesion in 2025, the US’ war has triggered pro-Iran demonstrations and worsened Iraqi outlook towards Washington.

Similarly, Israel’s fresh invasion of South Lebanon — due to Hezbollah leveraging the Iran war to expel Israeli occupied positions — has upended the Lebanese government’s efforts to regain a monopoly on security and disarm Hezbollah. Moreover, Washington’s publicly stated attempts to draw Kurdish actors into a war against Iran, has similarly triggered Kurdish unrest, threatening to undo recent attempts by regional states (such as Turkey and Syria) to reconcile historic differences with their Kurdish populations.

Iran’s potential regional dominance

Iran continues to prioritise friendly ties with “brotherly” Arab states. Tehran’s 2026 reassurances — that its attacks are strictly responses to attacks from US bases in Gulf states — are similar to its apologetic reassertions of fraternal ties to Qatar in 2025, when Iran symbolically retaliated against Al Udeid airbase in Doha after the US’ Operation Midnight Hammer. Statements by Pezeshkian and the IRGC on March 7, or Iran’s “gratitude” to Riyadh on March 7 for “not allowing” its territory to be used for anti-Iranian action, not only seek to clarify Iran’s anti-US (and not anti-Arab) focus but to also ensure that the war does not escalate horizontally. So, Iran also seeks to prevent drawing other Arab security arrangements, such as the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement.

But for Arab states, the concerns are larger. Ideally, they prefer continuing their post-2019 rationale of prioritising reconciliation, which led to agreements such as the Riyadh-Tehran rapprochement of 2023. Arab states had bet that this would help preserve regional stability, especially following the unprecedented 2019 Houthi drone strikes on the Abqaiq and Khurais oil installations. Now, this war has featured such strikes on a larger scale. Iran has also successfully highlighted both the cost of Gulf states hosting American bases and relying on Washington for security — and reinforced the Arab need for stronger domestic military capabilities.

Even if Arab states join in the war drawing wider Iranian retaliation, Tehran’s survival (under new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei) and its now-proven ability to absorb military and economic pain and upend Arab economic stability will be the most enduring influence on long-term Iran-Arab relations. Arab states and Tehran will then search for a new geopolitical contract.