WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Gulf allies led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are urging President Donald Trump to continue waging war against Iran, arguing that a month-long U.S.-led bombing campaign has not weakened Tehran enough, according to U.S., Gulf and Israeli officials.
When the war began, some regional allies privately complained that they had not been given adequate advance notice of the U.S.-Israeli attack and that the U.S. ignored their warnings that the war would have devastating consequences for the entire region. But now some regional allies are telling the White House that the moment offers a historic opportunity to weaken Tehran's clerical rule once and for all.
Officials from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain have said in private conversations that they do not want to end the military campaign unless there is a major change in Iran's leadership or a dramatic shift in Iran's behavior. The officials were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The move by the Gulf states comes as Trump vacillates between claiming Iran's battered leadership is ready to resolve the conflict and threatening to further escalate the war if a deal is not reached soon.
Trump, meanwhile, has been trying to win over domestic public support for a war that has killed more than 3,000 people in the Middle East and shaken the global economy. However, the U.S. leader sounds increasingly confident that he has the full support of his most important Middle Eastern allies, including some that had been hesitant about new military action in the run-up to the war.
“Saudi Arabia is fighting back hard. Qatar is fighting back. The UAE is fighting back. Kuwait is fighting back. Bahrain is fighting back,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday night as he flew to Washington from his home in Florida. “They're all fighting back.”
The Gulf countries have U.S. troops and bases, and the United States has launched strikes against Iran but has not joined in offensive strikes.
Gulf allies support war to varying degrees
While regional leaders now generally support U.S. efforts, one Gulf diplomat described some divisions, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates leading calls for increased military pressure on Tehran.
The diplomat said the UAE has become perhaps the most hawkish of the Gulf states and is pushing hard for Trump to order a ground invasion. Kuwait and Bahrain also favored this option. The UAE has been hit by more than 2,300 missile and drone attacks from Iran, and its anger will only grow as the war drags on and its image as a safe, pristine and wealthy trade and tourism hub in the Middle East threatens to be tarnished.
Oman and Qatar have historically served as mediators between long-economically isolated Iran and the West, favoring a diplomatic solution.
The diplomat said Saudi Arabia has argued to the United States that ending the war now would not result in a “good deal” that would guarantee the security of Iran's Arab neighbors.
Saudi Arabia says a final resolution to the war must eliminate Iran's nuclear program, destroy its ballistic missile capabilities, end Tehran's support for proxy groups and ensure that the Strait of Hormuz is not effectively closed by the Islamic Republic in the future, as it was during the conflict. About 20% of the world's oil flowed through the waterway before the war.
Achieving these goals will require a drastic revision of the theocracy that has governed the country since its overthrow in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, or Islamic Revolution.
Meanwhile, senior Emirati officials have become more strident in their rhetoric toward Iran.
“An Iranian regime that launches ballistic missiles at home, weaponizes global trade and supports proxies is no longer an acceptable feature of the region,” Noura Al Kaabi, the UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, wrote in a column published on Monday in the state-linked English-language newspaper The National. “We want assurances that this will never happen again,” she added.
The White House declined to comment on reports of discussions with Gulf allies. But Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed on Monday that the United States and its Gulf Arab allies are on the same page on Iran.
“They are religious fanatics who will never be allowed to have nuclear weapons because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future,” Rubio said of Iran on ABC's “Good Morning America.” “By the way, all of their neighbors know this, and that's why all of their neighbors are supportive of the efforts we're doing.”
Saudi crown prince urges U.S. not to relax
Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, told White House officials that further weakening Iran’s military capabilities and clerical leadership is in the long-term interests of the Gulf region and beyond, according to a person briefed on the conversations.
Still, the Saudis are sensitive to the fact that the longer the conflict drags on, the more opportunities Iran has to strike at the country's energy infrastructure, which is the heart of its oil-rich economy.
Saudi government officials stressed that the kingdom ultimately wants to see a political solution to the crisis, but the current focus remains on protecting its people and critical infrastructure.
In recent days, Trump has sought to emphasize that most Gulf states were in lockstep with his administration as the United States waged war, and while criticizing NATO allies for not joining the U.S. fight, he pointed to how the countries came together at the height of the crisis.
On Friday, he praised the “courage” shown by Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the war unfolded.
The president, speaking at a Miami event hosted by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, was particularly effusive about the Saudi crown prince, praising him as a “warrior” and a “wonderful man.”
Trump also noted that Gulf states were hesitant about his and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to go to war, but later came together.
“They didn't expect this to happen, no one did,” Trump said, referring to Iran's thousands of retaliatory salvoes across the Gulf. “They turned against them and became really powerfully aligned. They stood with us, but they didn't stand with us very indirectly. They stood with us.”
Will Gulf allies join the fight?
Trump has yet to call on Gulf states to join the offensive.
One factor may be that the government may have calculated that it is not worth the complications of deploying more troops outside Israel.
In the first days of the conflict, three U.S. fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti friendly fire during Iranian airstrikes. All six crew members ejected safely from the F-15E Strike Eagle.
On March 12, a KC-135 tanker crashed in western Iraq, killing six U.S. service members.
Another factor, complicating their calculations, is that the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are the only Gulf states with formal diplomatic relations with Israel, noted Yasmin Farooq, director of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula program at the International Crisis Group.
But Iran has warned that if Trump follows through on his threat to attack Iranian power plants if Iran does not open the Strait of Hormuz by April 6, it will attack its neighbor's critical infrastructure, including desalination plants used to provide drinking water to the region.
“The lack of clear goals, the lack of trust that the United States will actually stay the course and get the job done … makes some of them reluctant,” Farooq said. “But if one of the countries had a major casualty (incident), then they would have grounds to become belligerents.”
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Magdy reported from Cairo, and Mednik reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville aboard Air Force One and Joseph Federman in Jerusalem contributed reporting.