The government in Tehran must surely find itself deeply embarrassed as it reads, along with the rest of us, that US President Donald Trump postponed a return to striking Iran in response to requests from several Gulf leaders.
President Trump himself may find that he is in a predicament no less embarrassing than that of the Iranian government if he reflects on the fact that Gulf leaders advised him to postpone a return to war and pursue diplomacy and peace instead.
The Supreme Leader’s government will feel embarrassed because, this time, it will see in practical terms that the Gulf states had opposed the war from the outset. They had advised the US administration to leave room for diplomacy and had quietly urged the White House to recognize that war in the Gulf was neither a solution nor could it ever be one, and that diplomacy and politics must remain the priority.
They acted accordingly and said so publicly. The problem was that they could neither compel Trump to adopt their view nor prevent him from lending his ears to the hardline government in Tel Aviv, which continuously pushed him toward war rather than peace.
It is no secret that the war’s end on the eighth of last month, after forty days of fighting, did not please Israel’s hardline government and was not to its liking. Nor is it a secret that, since the forty-day war came to an end, it has been blowing on the embers in the hope that they might reignite. This was evident throughout the period between the ceasefire and the moment the American president announced his response to the Gulf leaders’ request.
Day after day, we read statements from the Israeli defense minister saying that his country was simply waiting for a green light from Washington to resume the war against Iran.
That alone should have been enough for Iran to observe and compare positions. It should have been enough for Tehran to distinguish between six states on the western shore of the Gulf, which view it as a bridge for communication with their Iranian neighbor on the eastern shore, and Israel, on the Mediterranean coast, which never misses an opportunity to incite and lure the United States into declaring war on the Iranians.
When President Trump decided to launch what he called the “Freedom Project” to forcibly open the Strait of Hormuz to navigation, Saudi Arabia refused to allow its territory to be used for the operation. Its refusal prevented the project from going ahead. This was announced by others rather than by Riyadh itself, even though it could have publicized the matter and used it to its advantage. Instead, it believed that its position would reach the world, that Iran would learn of it as well, and that it would represent another step along a path that Riyadh had embarked upon in its region and continues to pursue.
For all these reasons, and they are only part of a larger picture, the government in Tehran will find itself embarrassed. It may well wish it had apologized for hostile acts that at times struck Saudi territory and at other times targeted the territories of other Gulf states. Were it not for the stubborn pride that so often prevents such admissions, it might have rushed to apologize and acknowledged that it had failed to distinguish between neighboring countries that regard good neighborly relations as a sacred obligation and another state that occupies Palestinian land and sees no shame in targeting the territory of others.
As for President Trump’s own embarrassment, he will only feel it if he reflects on his actions since lending his ears to the hardline prime minister in Tel Aviv, or to those around him who share the Israeli government’s inclinations.
It is true that the United States gained certain advantages from this war, but it could have achieved such gains without resorting to one. It could have used the many levers at its disposal to bring Iran to sign a binding agreement, rather than resorting to a war that was unnecessary, futile and unlikely to yield any meaningful return.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must surely be among the most distressed, seeing the American decision-maker lend one ear to the Gulf leaders, and perhaps both ears, after experiencing the consequences of listening only to Israel.
The Israeli government will certainly not despair. It will continue seeking to monopolize the American president’s thinking, hoping to convince him that a return to war would benefit his country. At the same time, Trump’s shifting positions make it necessary to remain cautious lest he surprise the region by reversing the response he announced to Gulf mediation.
Iran, however, can prevent both him and the Israeli government from moving in that direction. That will only happen if Tehran stops provoking hostility with the Gulf and continually finding new ways to stir controversy over the Strait of Hormuz. The strait is not an Iranian strait, nor is it a passage through Iranian territory. It is a waterway with two shores, one of which is bordered by Oman, one of the six Gulf states.
These are political and geographical realities that Tehran seems to lose sight of in its pursuit of victory. Victory cannot come at the expense of neighboring states, because that is, in truth, aggression. If Iran does indeed find itself embarrassed in the way described here, and it surely must, then the least it could do is take steps toward rebuilding trust after the Gulf states had extended goodwill in all sincerity, only for the Iranian government to turn that goodwill into a target for its aim.
