Gulf States Are Making a Mistake on Iran

A war meant to contain Tehran may instead unmake the Gulf’s own stability

By: Salman Rafi Sheikh

The pro-war claque

The Arab Gulf’s rulers are confronting a paradox of their own making. As Iranian missiles strike their cities and energy infrastructure, some are edging toward a dangerous conclusion: that only the decisive weakening – or even destruction – of Iran can restore security. It is a seductive idea. It is also a deeply flawed one. The current war is already demonstrating a harsher truth: escalation is not containing Iran. It is exposing the Gulf to forms of instability not seen since the brutal takeover of Iraq and Syria by ISIS.

Escalation Without Control

The Gulf states may not have chosen this war, but they are increasingly shaping its trajectory. Recent reporting indicates that some Gulf governments are weighing more direct military involvement or quietly backing a more aggressive US strategy against Iran. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is leading the van, urging US President Donald Trump to continue and intensify military strikes against Iran to finish off the regime. This shift reflects both fear and anger. Iran’s retaliation has been wide-ranging: missiles and drones have struck energy facilities, cities and critical infrastructure across the region. The psychological effect has been profound. Gulf capitals, long insulated from regional wars and most attractive places for foreign capital, are now very much within the battlespace.

At the same time, global markets are already registering the consequences. Gulf stock indices have fluctuated amid escalating tensions, while oil prices have surged on fears of disruption. The Strait of Hormuz—through which a significant share of global energy supplies passes—has again become a strategic chokepoint.

Yet this environment is precisely why escalation is so risky. While military logic suggests that intensifying pressure on Iran could degrade its capabilities, political logic points in the opposite direction. External attacks have historically strengthened, not weakened, the Iranian state by consolidating elite cohesion and legitimizing hardline factions. As it stands, and much to the disappointment of Mossad, no internal rebellion has erupted.

The Illusion of Iran’s Collapse

For Gulf states, the danger lies in misreading escalation as control. The war is not moving toward a clean resolution. It is expanding geographically, economically, and politically enough. The deeper strategic error is the belief that Iran can be solved through force, an assumption with both precedent and a cautionary history. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was famously framed as a decisive intervention that would remove a hostile regime and stabilize the region. Instead, it triggered state collapse, violent insurgencies and the eventual rise of ISIS. The lesson is not simply that intervention can fail. It is that destroying a state in the Middle East often produces outcomes far worse than the status quo.

Iran presents an even more complex case. It is larger, more populous and more institutionally resilient than Iraq was, even with a large part of its population estranged from a brutal and repressive regime. Decades of sanctions have not hollowed it out; they have forced adaptation. Its security apparatus is deeply entrenched, and its regional networks, state and non-state, extend across multiple theaters.

A fractured Iran wouldn’t resemble a neutralized threat. It would resemble a proliferation of them: competing militias, unsecured weapons systems, refugee flows and chronic instability spilling across borders. In simple words, a fragmented Iran would produce a permanent war in the Persian Gulf. For Gulf states, this would transform a familiar adversary into an unpredictable and fragmented security environment. There are already hints of this dynamic in the current conflict. Iranian retaliation has been asymmetric, targeting infrastructure and leveraging regional networks rather than relying solely on conventional warfare. This approach underscores a key reality: Iran doesn’t need to win decisively to impose costs. It only needs to sustain disruption.

Moreover, this war is exposing vulnerabilities within the Gulf itself. Critical infrastructure from oil facilities to desalination plants is highly concentrated and difficult to defend. Even limited strikes can generate outsized economic and social consequences. The result is a strategic asymmetry. While Iran absorbs punishment and adapts, the Gulf’s economic model – built on stability, predictability and openness – is far more sensitive to prolonged disruption.

Economic Exposure and Strategic Entrapment

If escalation continues, the Gulf states risk undermining the very foundations of their power.

Their economic systems depend on four interlinked pillars: secure energy exports, open shipping lanes, investor confidence, and a large expatriate workforce. Each of these is vulnerable to sustained conflict. The early signals are already visible. Market volatility, infrastructure damage, and rising geopolitical risk premiums are beginning to affect Gulf economies. Even if oil prices rise in the short term, the broader investment climate deteriorates. Capital is mobile—and it tends to flee uncertainty.

There is also a more subtle risk: strategic entrapment. By aligning themselves with maximalist objectives such as the total degradation of Iran, Gulf states are tying their security to outcomes they do not control. If the US fails to achieve decisive results, or if the conflict stalls into a prolonged stalemate, the Gulf will be left exposed. It will have escalated tensions without securing either victory or stability.

Recent rhetoric from Washington underscores this uncertainty. Threats to target Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including energy and water systems, signal a willingness to escalate further. At the same time, Gulf states themselves remain divided. While some are hardening their positions, others continue to emphasize diplomacy as the only sustainable path forward. This divergence reflects a fundamental dilemma: how to respond to immediate security threats without locking the region into a long-term cycle of escalation.

The Geography of Reality

The Gulf’s strategic challenge is not Iran’s existence; it is Iran’s permanence. Geography cannot be bombed away. Iran will remain a central actor in the Gulf regardless of how this war ends. The question is not whether Iran can be eliminated, but how it can be managed.

A strategy built on destruction is unlikely to succeed, and even less likely to produce stability. A strategy built on management, by contrast, acknowledges the constraints of geography and the limits of force. This does not mean accommodation or naivety. It means combining deterrence with diplomacy, containment with engagement, and competition with clear rules of the game.

The alternative is a region locked into perpetual crisis, where each escalation produces new insecurities rather than resolving old ones. The Gulf states have spent decades building islands of stability in a turbulent region. That achievement is now at risk, not because Iran is too strong, but because the response to Iran is strategically misguided and blind to what it can do to the very future Gulf states might be looking to secure. In the end, the most dangerous illusion is not that Iran can be confronted. It is that it can be made to disappear.

Dr. Salman Rafi Sheikh is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan. He is a long-time contributor on diplomatic affairs in Asia Sentinel.