Arab Gulf states align with Israel on Iran threat

With the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 powers (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China, and Germany) approaching a March 24 deadline for a “political framework agreement,” Israel’s objections to the parameters of the emerging deal have been highly publicized. But lesser known is the growing unease about the negotiations among many leading Arab states.

For nations such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, which all have Sunni Muslim-majority populations, Iran—which is a Shi’a Muslim and ethnically Persian country—has long been viewed as a regional rival. Lying on the strategic crossroads between Central Asia and the Middle East, Iran is one of the world’s top oil producers and the main regional competitor for the oil-rich Arab Gulf states, which are vying for power in regional conflicts such as those inside Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. 

Recent media reports said that in closed talks with European lawmakers, Saudi diplomats expressed their willingness to lend Saudi Arabia’s airspace to Israel for a possible attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“Although those reports have been officially denied by both Riyadh (the Saudi capital) and Jerusalem, this kind of cooperation makes strategic sense,” Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council think tank, said. “Saudi Arabia and Israel both feel betrayed by the current negotiations underway with Iran, and both feel they need to make alternative plans to cope with what both view as an existential threat to its existence.”

But Dalia Dassa Kaye, director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND think tank, cautioned against reading too much into reports of Saudi-Israeli cooperation.

“While it is absolutely true that the Saudis share Israel’s concerns over Iran’s nuclear capability, and in that sense they are tacitly aligned, I think the Saudis would be extremely wary of any support for military action that would implicate them in the attacks,” Dassa Kaye said.