DUBAI – 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 “weaponized,” 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.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.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.
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