By Samia Nakhoul
DUBAI, March 27 (Reuters) – Gulf Arab states are telling the U.S. that any deal with Tehran should do more than end the war, and must permanently curb Iran’s missile and drone capabilities and ensure global energy supplies are never again “weaponised”, four Gulf sources said.
U.S. President Donald Trump has extended his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which carries about 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, or face the destruction of its energy plants.
But the big question confronting Gulf policymakers is no longer how the Iran war ends, but what kind of regional order follows, the four Gulf sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
A CEASEFIRE ALONE ‘ISN’T ENOUGH’
Gulf officials, whose countries have been repeatedly fired on by Tehran during the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, have told Washington in private meetings that the Islamic Republic has left them no diplomatic “off-ramp”, the sources said.
The officials want any deal to lock in enforceable restraints on missile and drone attacks on energy and civilian assets, threats to oil and shipping routes, and proxy warfare, the sources added.
Any agreement must rewrite the rules of engagement by providing guarantees that the Strait of Hormuz is never again used as a tool of war and Gulf states must be written into the architecture of what comes next, they say.
“The real challenge is not persuading Iran to stop the war, but ensuring the Gulf is not left exposed to the same dynamics that made it possible in the first place,” Ebtessam Al‑Kerbi, president of the Emirates Policy Centre, told Reuters.
Yousef al‑Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the United States, has framed the war not as a crisis to be frozen but as a test of whether Iran can still hold the global economy hostage afterwards.
“A simple ceasefire isn’t enough,” Otaiba wrote in a column for the Wall Street Journal. “We need a conclusive outcome that addresses Iran’s full range of threats: nuclear capabilities, missiles, drones, terror proxies and blockades of international sea lanes.”
A deal that only shelves missiles, drones and proxy warfare, he wrote, would simply defer the next crisis.
Gulf economies, highly reliant on energy exports and travel, have been hit hard by the war, which has sent shockwaves through the global economy, with disruptions in the strait driving up energy prices, rattling supply chains and fuelling inflation.
The United States can determine with certainty only that it has destroyed about a third of Iran’s vast missile arsenal, according to five people familiar with the U.S. intelligence.
Gulf officials say their scepticism is rooted in experience.
Iran’s nuclear enrichment – part of the process of making nuclear weapons although Tehran denies seeking them – was capped under a deal reached in 2015, but Tehran retained the ability to menace the region with missiles, drones, proxy warfare and threats to maritime security. The Gulf states say that possibility must now be removed if the region is to be stable.
In 2018, Trump announced the United States’ withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, calling the agreement a “defective” and “one-sided” agreement that did not serve U.S. interests.
IRAN’S STRIKES PUSH UAE CLOSER TO WASHINGTON
The Gulf states of Qatar, Oman and Kuwait are pushing behind closed doors for a swift end to the war, fearing the economic fallout and reprisals, the sources said.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain say they are ready to absorb an escalation of the war and will not accept a post-war Iran that is still able to use the Strait of Hormuz as a bargaining chip of for what they see as blackmail.
Trump has not only said he will extend his deadline for Tehran to open the strait until 0000 GMT on April 7, but has also said talks with Iran are going “very well”.
An Iranian official has described a U.S. proposal for ending the war was “one-sided and unfair,” and Tehran has demanded the closure of U.S. bases in the Gulf as a condition for any settlement.
But UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said Iran’s attacks on Gulf states had had “profound geopolitical repercussions,” cementing Tehran as the central threat shaping Gulf strategic thinking. The result, he said, would be deeper security alignment by the UAE with Washington.
“This is the cost of Iran’s misguided calculations,” he said.
GULF STATES WANT SECURITY GUARANTEED
Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Saudi-based Gulf Research Center, said the Gulf states’ message to Washington was no longer implicit but explicit – that any agreement with Iran must directly address and guarantee the security of the Gulf states.”
“The United States protects its interests, and Israel’s. Now it is our turn to protect and defend ours,” he said.
That message was reinforced by the Gulf Cooperation Council, a group including Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and the UAE, which has signalled a unified front against any settlement that sidelines Gulf security.
Citing 5,000 missile and drone attacks on Gulf energy facilities, civilian infrastructure and maritime traffic, GCC Secretary‑General Jasem Al-Budaiwi has said that Iran has “crossed all limits”.
He said the Gulf had exercised restraint to avoid a wider war but that the region would not accept being targeted again, making clear that while a political path is preferred, every state retains the right to defend itself.
Trump has been weighing whether to deploy ground forces to seize Iran’s strategic oil hub of Kharg Island, which handles 90% of Iran’s oil exports, according to a U.S. official and three people familiar with the matter.
Taking it, analysts say, would give Washington powerful leverage over Iran’s economy.
Tehran has warned that any such move would trigger strikes by Iran against the “vital infrastructure” of any country that aided such an operation by U.S. forces.
Some Gulf allies have been cautioning Washington against putting boots on the ground, including troops on Kharg Island, as they believe doing so would expand the war, trigger significant retaliation by Iran, and possibly on Gulf energy and civilian infrastructure, a senior Gulf official said.But the Gulf states are urging Washington to continue degrading Iran’s cruise and ballistic missile capabilities as that has long been the main threat against their countries, the Gulf official said.
(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and David Brunnstrom in Washington and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Writing by Samia Nakhoul, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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