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Iranian officials are using Israel’s September 9 strike in Doha, Qatar, to frame the United States as an unreliable security guarantor for Gulf states in an effort to break the nascent anti-Iran coalition in the region. Israel’s September 9 airstrike targeting senior Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, caused the Gulf states to condemn Israeli actions. Iran has exploited these frustrations among Gulf states by questioning the reliability of US partnerships. Iranian officials have made statements and held a series of meetings and phone calls with Gulf and Arab states since September 9, in which they condemned the Israeli airstrike as a “violation of international law.” Iranian officials have misrepresented the degree of US knowledge of the Israeli strikes and have suggested that the US-brokered agreements are incapable of defending Arab states from Israeli attacks. The United States did not have adequate foreknowledge of the Israeli strike to discourage the Israelis from conducting the strike. Iranian officials have painted the Israeli strike as a direct threat to the security of Gulf countries and called for the international community to hold Israel accountable for its “criminal act.” Iran, of course, has repeatedly targeted Gulf states with much less precision and to much greater effect. Iran fired missiles and drones at the Saudi oil terminal in Dhafran in 2019, for example, which forced Saudi Arabia to dip into its oil reserves to support exports.
This Iranian effort to dissuade Gulf states from cooperating with the United States or Israel is extremely unlikely to succeed, but Iran has presumably designed a gradual coalition-breaking effort to undermine US-led efforts to forge an anti-Iran coalition in the Middle East. The US-led effort to forge this coalition has paid dividends for the United States in the Middle East already. Many Gulf and other Arab states contributed to Israel‘s defense against Iranian missile and drone attacks in April and October 2024, for example. This defense decreased the likelihood of further escalation between Iran and Israel by helping prevent any significant damage to Israel. One Iranian diplomatic push is extremely unlikely to undo the progress the United States has made towards forging an anti-Iran coalition, especially after the Iranian attack on Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar in June 2025. The recent Iranian rhetoric degrading US diplomatic and security partnerships is part of a long-running line of effort in a long-standing Iranian campaign to weaken the United States and secure Iran’s role as a regional hegemon. This line of effort has had no success to date.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is similarly trying to sow doubt about the United States’ role in the region. These narratives, although not coordinated with Iran, support Iranian objectives to decrease regional support for the United States. The PRC’s Foreign Ministry stated on September 10 that the Israeli strikes were linked to the US bias towards Israel, implying that the United States ignored the Gulf states’ security concerns. Chinese state-owned media widely covered the Israeli strike in Doha and accused the United States of foreknowledge of the strikes. Chinese state media Xinhua reported on September 10 that the Israeli airstrikes in Doha were “a clear escalation” involving a sovereign Arab country that has no direct military hostilities with Israel. State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) reported on September 11 that it would have been “very difficult” for Israel to have launched its airstrikes on Doha without US approval. A Chinese scholar similarly told CCTV on September 11 that the United States did not attempt to stop the Israeli strikes after receiving advanced warning from Israel about the strikes. The PRC has previously tried to exploit unpopular US policies among Arab states to undermine the US role as the primary regional partner.
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