Middle East rivals unite to push Trump toward Iran peace deal amid war fallout

Rival Middle Eastern nations, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have coalesced behind a provisional peace deal with Iran, urging the Trump administration to accept it despite fierce opposition from Israel.

The provisional deal was agreed at the end of last week after Pakistani and Qatari officials traveled to Iran in a final push for an outline agreement between Tehran and Washington. In a call with Trump on Saturday, leaders from the eight Muslim-majority nations urged him to accept a deal that would end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and relaunch negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme. Trump declared the deal was "largely negotiated".

The diplomatic push reflects regional disillusionment with U.S. power after Washington failed to deliver a decisive blow against Iran or protect Gulf allies. Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at Kings College London, said the Gulf was shocked at the degree to which Washington protected Israel first against Iranian drones and missiles, despite trillions of dollars of Gulf investment pouring into the U.S. "We're probably seeing the final days of American empire in the Middle East," he said. "Across the Gulf, there is complete disillusionment with American influence and the ability of America to lead."

The same countries lost the argument in Washington to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the war, but now they have managed to outweigh him. Trump said last week that Netanyahu "will do whatever I tell him to do" on Iran. An analysis piece published on Monday in the Times of Israel was headlined: "Israel began the Iran war as a partner of the US — and is ending it on the sidelines".

The United Arab Emirates, which had reportedly urged fellow Gulf countries to join the war against Iran and carried out its own airstrikes, swung behind the peace deal alongside Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt. The regional consensus-building process appeared to repair some of the bitter rivalry for influence between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with several phone calls between their rulers taking place in recent weeks.

When Trump used the conference call on Saturday to urge more countries to sign the Abraham accords, he was reportedly met with silence. Islamabad, which led the mediation efforts, has said that disunity in the Muslim world only plays into the hands of Israel. Masood Khan, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., said Islamabad's success had been bringing other countries into the peace process. Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar worked their own channels in support of the effort. "Pakistan could not have taken a solo flight," he said. "It needed to cover its flanks to make its mediation much more credible."

During the war, Pakistan sent troops and fighter jets to defend Saudi Arabia, while Egyptian soldiers and planes were stationed in the UAE. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a mutual defence pact last year. Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, a political science professor in the UAE, said his country had wanted to see Iran with no missiles and drones, no proxies and no nuclear activity, but that ultimately proved unattainable. "The UAE is a very pragmatic country," he said. "Iran remains a big menace, but it is no longer the imperial Iran that we've seen over the last 20 years."

HA Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank in London, said the region had calculated that regime change in Tehran was too risky because it could bring a collapse of the state and chaos, something that only Israel wanted. It had also become clear to Trump that the war would not deliver what he wanted, so the region did not so much persuade him to accept a deal as allowed him to say that he had overwhelming regional support. "This is no longer a defence architecture built solely around the United States. Gulf states are increasingly preparing for the possibility that Washington may not be there when they need it most," Hellyer said.