As any diplomat who has served in West Asia (aka Middle East) knows, aphorisms abound. One is that nothing in the region is ever as simple as it seems. The other is that, people in the region are liable to say something and then do exactly the opposite. These two things, even if remotely accurate, make it very difficult for outsiders to understand the region in all its complexity. But the Iran war has introduced a new degree of complexity which makes it hard even for experts to understand and predict events. Consider the following relationships.
US-Israel dissension: US-Israel ties have largely stood the test of time, though American Presidents have struggled on and off to bring their ironclad ally into line. But something different seems to be happening now. Questions like “who is the effing superpower here?” are being bandied about by the MAGA crowd, with Tucker Carlson leading the charge. More important, public opinion in the US which hitherto had cut Israel a lot of slack, appears to be turning. When unconfirmed reports emerge that the US provided intelligence inputs to Iran, of all countries, about the possibility of Israeli attacks against their negotiators, you know something is amiss somewhere. It is still premature to say that there is a rupture in the ironclad relationship, but it is doubtful if full trust can be restored anytime soon. Voices in the US blame Israel for having led Trump up the garden path in launching an unnecessary war against Iran. Interestingly, Israel itself is conscious of this and has promised to end its dependence on the US in ten year’s time. Who would have thought?
US-Iran rapprochement? It is important to understand the signficance of an American President signing a MOU with an Iranian President. This has not happened in decades. Add to this the provision in the MOU that US undertakes to develop a plan involving a whopping sum of USD 300 billion to help in the development and reconstruction of Iran, and you begin to rub your eyes in disbelief. The MOU could yet collapse. But Iran is a country which has normalized the slogan ” death to America” in the region. It is hard to overlook the geopolitical evolution in current American thinking, which should worry the hell out of not just Israel but also the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries.
UAE-KSA rift: One of the biggest casualties of the Iran war has been GCC unity, such as it was prior to the conflict. There is a lot of history to the deep mistrust between the Emiratis and the Saudis which in the past prevented the GCC from even launching a common currency. UAE normalizing its ties with Israel through the Abraham accords in 2020 was another area where the Emiratis differed with the Saudis who have always linked this issue with progress in Palestinian statehood. The conflicts in Yemen and South Sudan also saw the Emiratis and Saudis back different groups, leading to tension in the ties. UAE pulling out of OPEC, in the view of some analysts, was the last nail in the coffin. The Saudis were clearly not pleased.
But it is the current Iran conflict that has led to UAE and KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) falling foul of each other. It is no secret that UAE bore the brunt of the attacks from Iran and has also suffered the biggest reputational damage from the war. After all, the entire Dubai paradigm is under threat and it will take years for it to recover. UAE has clearly hitched its wagon to Israel and the US, in a clear break from the rest of the GCC. Given the traditional Shia-Sunni animosity between Iran and KSA, one would have thought the Saudis would have joined the Emiratis in wanting to teach a lesson to the Iranians. Curiously however, this did not happen. Indeed, at one stage the Saudis withheld permission from the US for their bases in KSA to be used for launching attacks against Iran. US threatened the Saudis that anti-drone interceptors would be withheld from them, before matters were resolved. Even so, one of the things that the Pakistanis reportedly secured was a commitment from Iran not to attack KSA. After all, the safety of Paksitani troops was at stake!
The bottom line is this. The UAE-KSA rift is here to stay and will jeopardise all attempts to achieve unity in the GCC.
Israel-Turkey rift: Something has changed in the ties between Israel and Turkey. On June 23rd an Israeli minister claimed that Turkey, along with Syria, had replaced Iran as the biggest danger to his country. Israel also upped the ante by recognising the genocide of the Armenian people carried out by the Ottomans in 1915 (Turkey does not recognise the deaths as a war crime, let alone a genocide). Not to be outdone, Turkey’s interior minister said he hoped to become the governor of Jerusalem once the city came under Turkish control. After all, the Ottoman empire ruled Jerusalem and Palestine for four centuries until 1917. Israel worries about Turkey’s outsized footprint in Syria and its budding military alliance with Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Turkey is concerned with Israel’s wars in Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, and its co-operation with Kurdish insurgents. Turkish policymakers consider Israel an impediment to every single file in the Middle East they are involved in. For now, the risk of confrontation between these two countries may be remote, but this relationship bears watching.
Qatar‘s substantive mediation: There are reasons to believe that while Paksitan did play an initial role as an interlocutor/ mediator, the more substantive role of late has been played by Qatar. This is interesting since Iran in March had reportedly succeeded in destroying the Ras Laffan City, the World’s biggest LNG facility in Qatar. But since March, there have been no serious attacks on Qatar. The obvious inference is that Qatar may have transferred (unblocked) substantial sums of USD to Iran, apart from taking on a more important mediatory role. This is of course due to Qatar’s enlightened self interest, more than anything else.
A Sunni axis in the offing? There have been repeated attempts in the past to establish a Sunni axis. In the current context, a Sunni axis has as its starting point the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement concluded in September 2025 between KSA and Pakistan. Famously, it has a NATO Article 5-like clause which says any attack on one country will be viewed as an attack on both. This also explains why Pakistan was so keen to implore Iran not to attack KSA, lest its troops get sucked into a conflict in the region. The million dollar question is this: Will Turkey and Egypt be happy to join this incipient “Sunni Alliance”? Evidence so far is mixed. Turkey has differences with KSA in terms of ambitions to lead the Islamic world and has the additional burden of belonging to NATO. Egypt has enough internal problems of its own for it not to want to be distracted by this, though it will welcome the monetary resources that come with it. All in all, it is an alliance in the making, and may remain that way for a while.
The curious case of Kurds: When the US along with Israel started the war with Iran, President Trump let it be known that he expected the Kurdish groups in Iran to rise up against the Iranian regime with a view to overthrowing the latter. President Trump, as is his wont, reversed gear a week later when he said that he did NOT want the Kurds to do anything since the war in Iran was complicated as it is! The CIA was reportedly working to arm Kurdish forces, and there are credible reports that the Trump administration was in active discussions with Kurdish groups about providing them with military support. In effect, the US was bombing Iran with a view to potentially prepare the ground for Kurdish parties based in the region and across the border in Iraq to launch an offensive against the Iranian regime. This never came to pass. Nevertheless in February, five Kurdish parties announced the formation of the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan. These include the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, the Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Freedom Party, the Kurdistan Free Life Party and the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan which joined later. The coalition’s leadership is largely based in Iraq or in exile in the West, though it is also well-organized inside Iran through clandestine networks. It is however unclear whether the newfound unity among the Iranian Kurds will endure. Disagreements over strategy, competition for resources, historical enmities and changing conditions may conspire to undermine their strategic cooperation in the near term.
Oman goes it alone as usual: Among all the GCC countries, Oman views itself differently. Other GCC countries call Oman “special”, with barely concealed sarcasm. Despite this, Oman has always ploughed a lonely furrow. Oman has always maintained excellent ties with Iran, going against the grain. Indeed, in May last year both Oman and Iran signed a number of agreements . More important, Iranian President Pezeshkian after a bilateral meeting with the Omanese Sultan praised Oman’s “active and constructive” role in facilitating “indirect” nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington. The Iranian president affirmed Iran’s full trust in Oman as a neutral mediator and reiterated Tehran’s commitment to diplomacy. That was then. In the recent conflict, Oman’s role appears to have been marginal. On the possibility of a toll for the Hormuz Strait, Oman has formally maintained the Strait must be open unconditionally and without fees. Indeed, Oman joined in the GCC Ministerial statement issued after the Rubio visit which rejected any tolls, fees, or attempts to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz. This in turn was predictably rejected by Iran. Subsequently Oman too walked back these remarks. What then is the actual position of Oman on the issue of fees/toll for the Hormuz Strait? Oman’s position may be described as one of “strategic ambiguity”. As a result, Omani diplomats tack back and forth between insisting no toll will be charged, and suggesting that ships might be eventually asked to pay a fee which will be called something other than a toll.
Whither I2U2? Conventional wisdom has it that the war in Iran means the I2U2 will be difficult to get off the ground. This may be true as far as it goes. If it however does materialize fully at a later stage, the I2U2 may be seen as a counterweight to the “Sunni Alliance” referred to earlier. Regardless, India has vastly strengthened its ties with the UAE for both strategic and energy security reasons. This has not and should not prevent India from maintaining good ties with both KSA and Iran.
If all of the above makes your head spin, you are not alone. It merely reconfirms two other aphorisms that I heard about West Asia when I served there as India’s envoy to Bahrain. One, the region, with tedious consistency, produces more history than it can consume. Two, what happens in the region seldom stays there!
Dr Mohan Kumar is a former Indian Ambassador to France and the Kingdom of Bahrain and is at present Dean/Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University.
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 