COMMENTARY: By Giorgio Cafiero
US President Donald Trump has faced mounting pressure to respond militarily to Iran’s crackdown on protesters across the country.
Although Trump has, for the moment, refrained from authorising a strike, a military operation against Iran remains a distinct possibility. US officials indicate that another critical decision point may arise in the coming weeks.
This prospect alarms nearly all states in West Asia, with the notable exception of Israel.
These regional actors view US strikes on Iran as a perilous course for Washington that would expose neighbouring countries to severe geopolitical, economic, and security risks.
Stability over regime change in Iran
Many states in West Asia are deeply concerned about the immediate destabilising consequences of US-Israeli military intervention against Iran.
Rather than ushering in a stable post-conflict order, they fear that an attack on Iran would unleash prolonged disorder, potentially even civil war, triggering large-scale refugee flows that could strain already fragile political and economic systems across the region.
Such turmoil also raises the spectre of separatist movements in Iran’s peripheral areas that are home to the country’s minority groups with their own histories of secessionist drives, such as ethnic Arabs, Baluchs, or Kurds.
Such developments would pose acute security risks for countries like Turkiye and Pakistan. From this perspective, the danger lies not only in Iran’s internal fragmentation but in the wider regional contagion that could follow.
For most of Iran’s neighbours, regime continuity — however imperfect — is viewed as preferable to the unpredictability of the Iranian nation-state collapsing.
US intervention is widely seen as risking Iranian retaliation against energy infrastructure, shipping routes, and regional military installations, with immediate repercussions for trade, investment, maritime security, and domestic stability.
Governments worry less about the Iranian government’s survival than about uncontrollable second-order effects: cyberattacks, militia mobilisation, terrorism, market volatility, and cascading insecurity across Iraq, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.
Put simply, most regional actors approach the prospect of escalation through a lens of risk aversion rather than ideological alignment.
The prevailing judgment among policymakers in most regional countries is that escalation is strategically irrational, while preserving the status quo remains the least dangerous option.
“Another regime-change effort gone wrong in the region would sew horrible chaos throughout the region. No one wants to see more chaos, refugees, and suffering in a region that has seen little else over the last several decades,” said Dr Joshua Landis, director of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, in an interview with The New Arab.
Perhaps cynically, many of these countries favour a weakened Iran under the Islamic Republic, seeing in its fragility a measure of predictability that outweighs the uncertainties of radical change.
This strategic calculation concludes that a weakened but intact Iran may pursue its interests within a framework it can anticipate and manage. Revolutionary upheaval, by contrast, could produce outcomes no state can control.
These could include sudden power vacuums or the rise of militant actors capable of unleashing turmoil far beyond Iran’s borders.
The leaders of most countries in the region generally “see Iran today as a country that is under severe sanctions, that is constrained, that is internally pressured but is still governed by a centralised state,” Dr Karim Emile Bitar, a lecturer in Middle East Studies at Sciences Po Paris, told TNA.
He noted that the Saudi leadership is particularly apprehensive about chaos and fragmentation in Iran, whether from a sudden collapse of the Islamic Republic or US-led war-induced regime change. Officials in Riyadh are especially concerned about domestic security, including the potential for unrest among Shia communities in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.
“Any escalation might empower radicals, embolden opposition movements throughout the region, and exacerbate sectarian polarisation,” added Dr Bitar.
Not lost in the equation is the fact that even states closely allied with the US and deeply wary of Iran are uneasy about many aspects of Washington’s foreign policy in the Middle East.
This scepticism is especially pronounced in the Trump era, where his unpredictability and missteps cast serious doubt on whether any coherent strategy underpins his administration’s approach to the region.
“The risk aversion is particularly understandable after the Iraqi, Afghan, and Libyan fiascos,” said Dr Bitar.
“The whole global war on terror turned out to be so extraordinarily counterproductive that even states that were, and are still, reliant on US support are very sceptical of US strategy, in case there is a strategy.”
Israel, Iran, and shifting threat perceptions
Geopolitical dynamics further heighten regional apprehensions over potential US strikes on Iran. In the wake of October 2023, Arab states have increasingly regarded Israel, not Iran, as the foremost threat to regional stability.
This was starkly underscored during and after the 12-Day War of June 2025, when Israeli attacks on Iran derailed US-Iranian nuclear negotiations conducted under Omani auspices in Muscat and Rome.
“Ever since the US essentially lifted all restraints on Israel during the Biden administration, regional players have started to see Israel’s aggressive foreign policy as a direct and unmanageable threat,” Dr Trita Parsi, executive vice-president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told TNA.
“Israel has bombed seven countries in the region since 7 October 2023.
“If the alliance with the US does not protect you from what these countries see as Israel’s designs for regional hegemony, then you will need a new coalition to balance against Israel,” he added.
“Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey have moved in this direction. Though Iran is not officially part of this coalition, it does serve as a buffer against Israel. Chaos in Iran — or a pro-Israeli puppet being installed in Tehran — is seen as a very dangerous blow to the effort to balance against Israel’s increasingly aggressive regional posture.”
Gulf mediators: Diplomacy as a safety valve
What is striking is that, among the regional actors intent on averting a US strike on Iran, it was GCC states — particularly Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia — along with Turkiye, that mounted pivotal diplomatic efforts to persuade the Trump administration to seek a diplomatic off‑ramp rather than military confrontation.
Behind the scenes, these governments engaged in sustained high‑level dialogue with Washington, warning that an attack could unleash widespread instability across the Middle East and urging the White House to exercise restraint.
Noting that Muscat, Doha, and Riyadh offer Trump a “face-saving path” that looks more like leverage than retreat, while leaving room for a transactional deal, Dr Andreas Krieg, associate professor in Security Studies at King’s College London, describes Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia as the “the de-escalation entrepreneurs” of the Gulf, serving as vital channels between Washington and Tehran.
“Their influence comes from three assets: practical leverage over basing, airspace and logistics; credibility as intermediaries able to transmit messages and test offers, particularly Qatar and Oman, who complement their inroads into Iran, and a shared interest in avoiding a regional war that would hit energy markets and domestic confidence.
They also shape Trump’s risk calculus by arguing that limited strikes would be symbolic, while the retaliation and political consequences would be strategic,” he added.
While recognising these three GCC states’ role in successfully steering Trump away from military action against Iran, at least for now, Dr Parsi emphasised that “much more is needed to make this a sustained move away from war”.
The calculus of escalation versus restraint
In sum, the prospect of a US strike on Iran illuminates the intricate web of regional concerns that extend far beyond Washington’s immediate calculations. Most states in West Asia, despite varying degrees of mistrust or rivalry with Tehran, view military escalation as a high-risk gamble that could destabilise the region for many years to come.
From potential refugee crises and economic disruption to militia mobilisation and the rise of radical actors, the second-order consequences of conflict are widely seen as far more dangerous than the challenges posed by a constrained, yet intact, Iran governed by the Islamic Republic.
At the same time, the role of diplomatic actors in the Arab world, like Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, underscores the importance of diplomacy and risk management in a region acutely sensitive to volatility.
Their ability to provide Washington with de-escalatory paths highlights how regional actors are not merely passive spectators but active shapers of strategic outcomes.
The lessons of America’s military campaigns across different parts of the Islamic world — from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya — have deepened this caution, fostering a widespread scepticism toward foreign-led military solutions.
Ultimately, the escalation versus restraint calculus reflects a pragmatic acknowledgement that chaos in Iran could ripple across West Asia, undermining both regional stability and global interests.
In this light, diplomacy, measured engagement, and regional consultation emerge not just as preferable alternatives but as essential instruments for maintaining a precarious balance in an already fragile geopolitical landscape.
Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics. He posts on X at @GiorgioCafiero This article was first published by The New Arab.
