Only the Gulf Can End the Iran War: The Arab Monarchies Must Help Washington and Tehran Save Face

Foreign Affairs · Allison Minor and Nate Swanson ·

The Arab monarchies must help Washington and Tehran save face.

For everyone involved, the war in Iran has been a strategic failure. The United States and Israel have shown that they can achieve a few military objectives, such as sinking Iran’s navy. But after eight months of fighting and pressure, they have also proved that they cannot forcibly realize their main ambitions, including regime change, destroying Iran’s nuclear program, or even reopening the Strait of Hormuz—a waterway that was not closed when the war began. The Islamic Republic, for its part, has demonstrated that it can survive intense bombings. Yet it cannot break the American military’s economically suffocating blockade and has thus far failed to achieve its goal of putting an end to indefinite threats of war against Iran.

In theory, the war’s descent into a painful stalemate should open the door to diplomatic outcomes. But both sides have proved incapable of making the concessions necessary to strike a deal. Instead, they appear to prefer a mutually destructive status quo that maintains the delusion of achievable victory and which they can justify with the continued pain they inflict on their adversaries. As a result, rather than moving toward a settlement, both sides are threatening renewed attacks.

But there is a face-saving way for Iran and the United States to extricate themselves from this conflict: a cease-fire brokered and managed by the Gulf Arab states. The deal would begin with Gulf countries providing economic relief to Iran in exchange for Iran lifting its restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz. This would, in turn, allow the United States to lift its own blockade. The Gulf states would also need to commit to taking steps to deter Washington from resuming strikes on Iran in the future. But neither the United States nor Iran would need to make direct concessions to the other, and each would avoid the most painful compromises. The United States, for example, would not have to lift its “maximum pressure” campaign, and Iran would not have to agree to limit its nuclear program. Gulf states could then use their leverage to sustain the cease-fire until conditions permit a more comprehensive agreement.

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