Fearing fallout, Gulf rulers urge US to help stop war in Gaza

DUBAI, UAE—From one end of the Gulf to the other, the frustration in Arab capitals is palpable.

The positive spirit of regional cooperation that reigned here only two months ago has been swamped by frustration with the United States. Washington may have recommitted to the Middle East, but it has proved unable or unwilling to end a war in Gaza that Gulf officials fear will destabilize the entire region.

Seeking to curb that war – now seen as potentially an existential threat – Gulf sheikhdoms are partnering with Egypt and Jordan to act as a united bloc, hoping their combined clout can bring an end to the conflict before it ignites a new wave of extremism and violence.

“We don’t want the moderate middle to fall,” says one Gulf diplomat. “This war does not only threaten all the progress we have made the past couple of years. It threatens to be another Iraq War and create a cycle of violence and instability that spreads across the region.”

“Think about what this will create in the age of social media,” Bahraini Crown Prince Salman warned recently, recalling how the U.S. invasion of Iraq paved the way for the rise of the Islamic State.

“I think we will be looking at a far more difficult next 20 years,” he told participants in an international security conference.

The war in Gaza has brought conflict back to a region where détente and cooperation had been taking hold.

Saudi Arabia and Iran recently sealed their rapprochement, Gulf states and Turkey resolved some of their differences, as did the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, amid a broader regional push for normalization with Israel.

Initially an inconvenience, the war is now being viewed by Gulf states as a security threat. They see the Israel-Hamas war undermining the very idea of moderation, bolstering Islamist extremists sympathetic to Hamas who advocate violence.

The longer the war drags out, they conclude, the higher the likelihood it could threaten Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the Jordanian monarchy. Their collapse would be catastrophic, according to several senior Gulf officials.

Gulf rulers already feel overextended, propping up failed Arab states such as Sudan, Libya, Syria, and Yemen with diplomatic and financial aid. Jordan and Egypt, key Gulf allies, are among the last functioning non-Gulf Arab states.

A new bloc

Gulf states are also worried by the pressure the war is putting on Arab countries with ties with Israel, whose public opinion is demanding action…..CONTINUE READING AT THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR