The Middle East is teetering on the edge of a broad regional war. On June 12, Israel began a sustained bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, regime leadership, and oil and gas depots in an effort to—in the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu— “degrade,
destroy and remove [the] threat” of potential Iranian nuclear weaponization. Iran has responded with a barrage of ballistic missiles and by pulling out of nuclear negotiations with Washington. The Arab states have been worried about being dragged into a war between Iran and Israel ever since the two countries began sparring indirectly a year and a half ago. But as the fighting expands, and with missiles routinely traveling over the entire Gulf region, neighboring states are now asking not if, but when, the conflict will come to them.
There is still a narrow window to avoid an all-out war. But with Washington having seemingly cooled to diplomacy, it is up to countries in the region to stop the conflict. Only the Arab states and Turkey, after all, have good working relations with Israel, Iran, and the United States. Now, these countries must come up with de-escalation proposals. They need to set up a regionally run mediation initiative that allows them to speak with and act as a broker between the warring parties. They will still have to involve Washington. But they cannot depend on it.
Should the Arab countries and Turkey fail, the war will regionalize. They could well face attacks on their infrastructure by Iran. And fear and uncertainty will spread among their peoples.
CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE
For years, Arab governments have regarded both Iran and Israel as troublesome countries. Iran’s ideological expansionism, advancing nuclear program, and support for proxy militias in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, as well as Bashar al-Assad’s former regime in Syria, have long made it a threat to its neighbors. In 2019, the Arab world watched with alarm as Iran, according to UN, U.S., and Saudi investigators, attacked Saudi oil facilities. (Iran denied involvement but cheered the strikes.) They were distressed when Tehran turned the Houthis, once a localized Yemeni insurgency, into a long-range threat that in 2022 struck a construction site and an oil facility in Abu Dhabi.
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