July 4, 2026
Daniel DePetris
In late June, less than two weeks after the Trump administration signed its much-ridiculed memorandum of understanding with Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to the Middle East. The journey was as much about damage control as anything else. While Washington’s regional allies were relieved the shooting had tapered off, many had concerns about what the deal left out.
Daniel DePetris
In late June, less than two weeks after the Trump administration signed its much-ridiculed memorandum of understanding with Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to the Middle East. The journey was as much about damage control as anything else. While Washington’s regional allies were relieved the shooting had tapered off, many had concerns about what the deal left out.
It turns out that the
disagreements between Washington and the Gulf monarchies are more serious
behind closed doors than U.S. officials would like us to believe. According to
reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the war with Iran, and
the way President Donald Trump opted to fight it, has injected a strong dose of
truth serum into alliance relationships. Take Saudi Arabia and its crown
prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, who ordered the kingdom to bar the U.S. military
from using Saudi airspace and military bases as Trump was attempting to reopen
the strait militarily in May. The Saudis viewed the U.S. operation, code-named
Project Freedom, as an unnecessary escalation that would result in Iran lobbing
yet more missiles and drones at Gulf energy facilities. The situation got so
tumultuous that the White House threatened to block delivery of missile defense
interceptors to Riyadh.
This specific dispute eventually evaporated after the Saudis reversed their position. But the fact that the spat occurred at all will no doubt rub the U.S. foreign policy establishment in Washington the wrong way. Like clockwork, people will begin worrying that Trump’s war with Iran is eviscerating Washington’s traditional strategic ties with Gulf states, which give the United States basing rights and enhance the U.S. military’s ability to project power. But what if this development is a net positive rather than a net negative?
After all, there’s a sound case to reassess America's strategy in the Middle East.
For starters, U.S. interests don’t always align with the people who actually call the Gulf home. Outside of Israel, no state in the Middle East wanted Trump to launch a preventive war against Iran. Indeed, they actively lobbied against that war in the months and weeks before Trump made his decision. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates had strong reasons for this: all three rely on the Strait of Hormuz to export crude oil/natural gas to world markets. They clearly understood that an Iranian closure of the strait would hit their wallets hard. And sure enough, that’s precisely what happened. The Iranians weaponized geography to undermine U.S. military superiority, started striking its neighbors’ energy infrastructure, and, over time, turned the strait into a de facto Iranian lake. The International Energy Agency estimated in May that Gulf oil supply through the strait was down by 14.4 million barrels a day, approximately 14% of the world's supply. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost.
But a divergence between Washington and the Gulf monarchies was growing even before the conflict with Iran began in February.
Saudi Arabia was increasingly disposed toward establishing de-escalation protocols with Iran, its regional rival, in order to nip prospects for heightened chaos in the bud. The 2023 Saudi-Iran normalization deal, brokered by China, was the culmination of this new approach, which was motivated in large part by the Saudi government’s doubt about the reliability of U.S. security guarantees after a series of Iranian-sponsored proxy attacks failed to elicit a tough response from the first Trump administration.
A thinned-out U.S. presence in the Middle East could therefore be a boon to regional stability rather than an impediment to it. With Washington taking less of an ownership role as the ultimate security guarantor, regional states will be forced to reassess their own policies. And while none of the Sunni Arab monarchies want a complete rupture from the U.S., the Gulf Arabs are determined to diversify their foreign relationships. Last September, for example, Saudi Arabia struck a defense alliance with Pakistan, which reportedly involved the deployment of Pakistani combat aircraft and 8,000 Pakistani troops to the kingdom. The UAE is similarly boosting defense cooperation with Israel. And Turkey is looking like a far more appealing weapons exporter than it once did.
Perhaps the war will end up delivering some longer-term diplomatic silver linings?
This specific dispute eventually evaporated after the Saudis reversed their position. But the fact that the spat occurred at all will no doubt rub the U.S. foreign policy establishment in Washington the wrong way. Like clockwork, people will begin worrying that Trump’s war with Iran is eviscerating Washington’s traditional strategic ties with Gulf states, which give the United States basing rights and enhance the U.S. military’s ability to project power. But what if this development is a net positive rather than a net negative?
After all, there’s a sound case to reassess America's strategy in the Middle East.
For starters, U.S. interests don’t always align with the people who actually call the Gulf home. Outside of Israel, no state in the Middle East wanted Trump to launch a preventive war against Iran. Indeed, they actively lobbied against that war in the months and weeks before Trump made his decision. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates had strong reasons for this: all three rely on the Strait of Hormuz to export crude oil/natural gas to world markets. They clearly understood that an Iranian closure of the strait would hit their wallets hard. And sure enough, that’s precisely what happened. The Iranians weaponized geography to undermine U.S. military superiority, started striking its neighbors’ energy infrastructure, and, over time, turned the strait into a de facto Iranian lake. The International Energy Agency estimated in May that Gulf oil supply through the strait was down by 14.4 million barrels a day, approximately 14% of the world's supply. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost.
But a divergence between Washington and the Gulf monarchies was growing even before the conflict with Iran began in February.
Saudi Arabia was increasingly disposed toward establishing de-escalation protocols with Iran, its regional rival, in order to nip prospects for heightened chaos in the bud. The 2023 Saudi-Iran normalization deal, brokered by China, was the culmination of this new approach, which was motivated in large part by the Saudi government’s doubt about the reliability of U.S. security guarantees after a series of Iranian-sponsored proxy attacks failed to elicit a tough response from the first Trump administration.
A thinned-out U.S. presence in the Middle East could therefore be a boon to regional stability rather than an impediment to it. With Washington taking less of an ownership role as the ultimate security guarantor, regional states will be forced to reassess their own policies. And while none of the Sunni Arab monarchies want a complete rupture from the U.S., the Gulf Arabs are determined to diversify their foreign relationships. Last September, for example, Saudi Arabia struck a defense alliance with Pakistan, which reportedly involved the deployment of Pakistani combat aircraft and 8,000 Pakistani troops to the kingdom. The UAE is similarly boosting defense cooperation with Israel. And Turkey is looking like a far more appealing weapons exporter than it once did.
Perhaps the war will end up delivering some longer-term diplomatic silver linings?
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