The Gulf expects actions, not words, from Iran

On Saturday, March 7, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian made headlines when he gave a statement that was wholeheartedly welcomed across the Gulf. “I personally apologize to the neighboring countries that were affected by Iran’s actions,” the president said in a televised address. “What happened was that our commanders and our leader lost their lives following barbaric aggression, and our armed forces ... fired at will because their commanders were absent and did whatever they deemed necessary.”

This came shortly after a wide-ranging interview that Iran’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Alireza Enayati, gave to AFP. In it, he thanked Saudi Arabia for not allowing its airspace to be used in attacks on Iran and denied that Tehran had targeted the US Embassy in Riyadh or the Shaybah oil field.

Many observers, yours truly included, breathed a sigh of relief. The indiscriminate attacks targeting civilians in Gulf countries, particularly in Saudi Arabia (which had signed a nonaggression treaty with Tehran in Beijing in 2023), were assumed to have been a result of strategic miscalculation and were given the benefit of the doubt. This is despite the repeated pattern, and the clear indication that Tehran sought to target oil facilities to make the war as expensive as possible for America and the world at large.

Still, some speculated that these attacks resulted from confusion or a command vacuum following the killing of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Others suggested that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps may have used the moment to remind the “civilian” side of the Iranian government (such as the president, the foreign minister, the deputy foreign minister and the ambassador) who really holds power.

That interpretation, however, ignored the view long held by many Iran experts that the Revolutionary Guards have always been the real power center in Iran and that the regime’s good-cop, bad-cop dynamic has long been a deliberate tactic.

Riyadh has refrained — so far — from firing a single bullet back at Tehran in response, even though it possesses the capability to inflict serious damage. 

Faisal J. Abbas | Editor-in-Chief

It did not take long for the Revolutionary Guards to shatter any lingering doubts. The IRGC quickly doubled down on the attacks, even belittling and criticizing their own president. Indeed, the attacks on civilian targets in the Gulf, and Saudi oil facilities, increased instead of being halted.

Despite this, goodwill on the Saudi and Gulf side continued. The hope was that once a new supreme leader was chosen, Iran would regain a clear and consistent direction. When Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain supreme leader, was selected, there was cautious optimism, particularly when he said: “Iran is fully prepared for unity and to establish mutually beneficial, warm and sincere relations with all its neighbors.

We have 15 neighboring countries by land and sea, and we have always desired, and continue to desire, friendly and constructive relations with all of them.”

At that point, there seemed to be no excuse for ambiguity. The supreme leader, by definition, reigns supreme. He holds religious, political and military authority. Moreover, few could be expected to demonstrate greater loyalty to the system than a son avenging the deaths of his father and family members in American and Israeli strikes.

Yet the new ayatollah has not appeared publicly. Iranian officials have confirmed that he was injured in the Feb. 28 strike that killed his father, raising questions about whether he is fully in charge. So far, it does not appear that the Revolutionary Guards have obeyed his orders.

It is worth noting that Mojtaba Khamenei is not only the supreme leader, but he also served for decades as his father’s chief of staff. He would have been present when his father received the handwritten message from King Salman that was delivered last year by Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman. Mojtaba was also likely in the room when the elder Khamenei, not speaking for the cameras, nor acting as a diplomat paid to offer pleasantries, told Prince Khalid that Iran wholeheartedly wished to see Saudi Arabia “rich, strong and stable.” That sentiment reinforced the spirit of the 2023 Beijing Agreement, which would not have been possible without the former supreme leader’s blessing.

Today, while Saudi Arabia, like other GCC countries, has made clear that the right to respond to aggression remains on the table, the prevailing hope is that the new supreme leader will continue along the path his father appeared to embrace when he endorsed the Beijing Agreement. Putting differences aside would benefit not only bilateral ties but the entire region.

It must also be noted that since the war between US-Israel and Iran began, it is Iran that has violated the declaration, not Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has refrained — so far — from firing a single bullet back at Tehran in response, even though it possesses the capability to inflict serious damage. That statement stands even without invoking the US security partnership or the defense ties with Pakistan, both of which have signaled readiness to protect their ally (in Washington’s case, we are a major non-NATO ally, and in Islamabad’s case, the land of the Two Holy Mosques that it shares a security pact with).

The new supreme leader should not allow those who wish to tear up the Beijing Agreement to succeed. According to Iran’s own ambassador, Saudi Arabia has not allowed its airspace or territory to be used against Iran. Tehran would do well not to rely on unsubstantiated, anonymous claims appearing in certain Western media outlets, written by reporters with agendas that seek to sow discord between Tehran and Riyadh.

The credibility of those claims deserves to be “shot down” just as much as the missiles aimed at Riyadh or its oil facilities.

The new supreme leader should not allow those who wish to tear up the Beijing Agreement to succeed. 

Faisal J. Abbas | Editor-in-Chief

Saudi Arabia did everything possible to avert this war and diplomatic channels remain open, up until now. So did the Omanis by the way, but there is little anyone could have done 18 days ago if Iranian negotiators insisted on the right to enrich uranium during negotiations. If Iran’s nuclear program is purely peaceful, why insist on enrichment at this moment? Was that insistence worth the consequences? Playing ball with US President Donald Trump might have spared Iran immense suffering and preserved its relations with its neighbors. Alas, it is too late now to cry over spilt milk.

We are neighbors who share history, faith and geography. It is painful for us to see Iranian civilians suffering, 150 schoolgirls reportedly killed and heritage sites destroyed. Yet sympathy becomes difficult when Tehran fires missiles even toward its closest partners, including Oman, which as noted above was negotiating on Iran’s behalf until the very last moment and whose sultan was among the first to congratulate the new ayatollah.

Finally, Tehran’s claim that attacks on Gulf countries were carried out by enemy drones disguised as Iranian ones creates a troubling dilemma. If the claim is true, why the delay in raising it? And how does Tehran reconcile that narrative with earlier statements by figures such as Ali Larijani and other hard-liners who openly justified the attacks? Such a scenario would also suggest that the regime and its militias are either dysfunctional and operating in silos or have been infiltrated to an alarming degree.

If the claim is false, it only further erodes what little credibility remains.

Either way, the attacks on neighboring countries must stop. The Gulf expects actions, not words, before it is too late.

• Faisal J. Abbas is the Editor-in-Chief of Arab News. X: @FaisalJAbbas