Iran to Gulf States: Keep Your Distance – or Risk Being Drawn In

Balancing a dual strategy of indirect negotiations with the United States and retaliatory strikes in the region, Iranian officials are urging Gulf Cooperation Council states to “distance themselves from the military onslaught against Iran.” Yet with each successive Iranian strike, Tehran may be achieving the opposite effect – driving these states closer into alignment with the United States.

• March 25: Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Qalibaf wrote on X:
  • “Based on information, Iran’s enemies, with the support of a regional country, are preparing an operation to occupy one of Iran’s islands. All enemy movements are under the full surveillance of our armed forces. If they make a move, all that regional country’s vital infrastructure will be limitlessly targeted by relentless attacks.”
• March 25: Supreme National Security Council mouthpiece Nour News Agency reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi urged neighboring countries to “distance themselves from the military onslaught against Iran”:
  • “U.S. bases in the region, despite having stated that they would not be used against Iran, were in fact used. Services were provided to American forces; even outside the bases, support was given to them, and their so-called airspace was used. This is something that even they themselves acknowledge in various ways … For example, when it was announced that three U.S. F-15 aircraft had been shot down over Kuwait, regardless of the cause – which may have been friendly fire – the question arises as to what those fighter jets were doing in Kuwait. It is clear their route was toward Iran. I do not want to go into details, but it seems that the region did not take our warnings seriously and is now facing this situation.”
  • To the GCC states, Araghchi said: “Our message is clear: They must certainly distance themselves from the United States and separate themselves from this aggression against the Iranian people. This aggression is completely illegal, unjustified, and indefensible, and it has no legitimacy. Unfortunately, the countries of the region, especially those in the Persian Gulf, did not even condemn this action, which is very strange.”
  • “In the event of attacks, our targets will be U.S. bases, facilities, interests, and locations where American forces are concentrated. These are not limited to bases alone but also include other sites, such as fuel supply centers serving American forces. We will strike these targets. Additionally, when, during the conflict, they targeted infrastructure, we also attacked infrastructure whose stakeholders were American or that belonged to American companies.”
• March 26: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated Tasnim News, citing “informed sources,” released Iran’s response to U.S. demands for a cease-fire:
  • “Acts of aggression and assassination by the enemy must end.”
  • “Objective conditions must be created to ensure that war will not recur.”
  • “The payment of damages and war reparations must be guaranteed and clearly determined.”
  • “The end of the war must be implemented on all fronts and for all resistance groups that participated in this conflict across the region.”
  • “Iran’s exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz is and will remain Iran’s natural and legal right, and guarantees for the implementation of the other side’s commitments must be recognized.”
  • These demands were added to the Iranian demands raised during the last round of U.S.-Iranian nuclear negotiations.
  • “For Iran, it is clear that the U.S. claim of negotiations is merely a ‘third deception’ project, and the Americans are pursuing several objectives under the guise of negotiations: first, to mislead the world by presenting a seemingly peace-seeking image and a desire to end the war; second, to keep global oil prices low; and third, to buy time to prepare for a new aggressive action in southern Iran through a ground incursion.”

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