Gulf governments have come to see Israel, Iran’s archenemy, as a belligerent state seeking to dominate the Middle East. They believe that Israel could pose a greater threat to regional stability than an already weakened Iran does.

“Bombing Iran goes against the calculus and interests of the Arab Gulf States,” said Bader al-Saif, an assistant history professor at Kuwait University. “Neutralizing the current regime, whether through regime change or internal leadership reconfiguration, can potentially translate into the unparalleled hegemony of Israel, which won’t serve the Gulf States.”

Yasmine Farouk, the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula project director at the International Crisis Group, said that Gulf countries are worried about “the chaos that a regime change in Iran would cause in the region” and how Israel might use “that vacuum.”

Israel carried out a brazen attack in Qatar last year, in a failed attempt to assassinate senior Hamas officials. The Israeli strike rattled Gulf governments not only because many have been courted by Israel as potential allies in recent years, but also because they, like Israel, had long regarded the United States as their main security guarantor. Soon after the Israeli attack, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, sealed a security pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Yet the Emirates stands to lose from escalating tensions with Iran, too. Dubai, the largest Emirati city, has long served as a key port for trade with Tehran.

After Mr. Trump announced that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on U.S. trading partners that also trade with Iran, the Emirati trade minister said that his country was still trying to parse how that would affect them.

“We are the second-largest trading partner with Iran, and it is one of the main providers and suppliers of many of our commodities, especially food products,” Thani al-Zeyoudi, the trade minister, said at a conference on Tuesday, the Emirati newspaper The National reported.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/world/middleeast/gulf-trump-iran.html