As part of a ceasefire agreement with Iran, Donald Trump on May 25 called on Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan to in turn adhere to the Abraham Accords. As is often the case with Trump’s foreign policy, the announcement seemed to defy logic and border on extravagance. Egypt, Jordan and Turkey have maintained diplomatic relations with Israel for several decades now, and nothing says that the three other countries requested will respond to the American president’s call.
But there is something else behind this grandiloquent post published on [le réseau social] TruthSocial. By urging the countries in question to join the agreements in question, Trump is not only seeking to normalize their relations with Israel, but also and above all to bring about a sort of political consortium, an ideological coalition which would serve as a forward defense system articulated around Israeli strategic interests.
Most of the countries solicited by Trump – who also insists on the fact that this rallying “should be mandatory†– would have reason to refuse. Kuwait, however, is currently in the midst of major upheavals that are reducing its institutional capacity to do the same.
Pro-Gaza activists targeted
Due to its Arab nationalist tradition and its historically anchored pro-Palestinian position, Kuwait has always been an exception within the Gulf Cooperation Council on the issue of normalization. However, since the accession to power of Emir Mechaal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, at the end of 2023, the country is moving ever closer to the United Arab Emirates [principaux signataires des accords d'Abraham en 2020]which caused repercussions on the domestic level.
The Kuwaiti Parliament, one of the few democratic institutions in the Gulf, was suspended until further notice in 2024. Nearly 300,000 people, including citizens of Palestinian origin, were the subject of a vast campaign to strip their nationality. The possibilities [pour la population] to participate in political life, which gave Kuwait a special place in the Gulf, are now deliberately restricted, alongside a strengthening of cooperation ties with Abu Dhabi on the military and intelligence levels.
This is evidenced by the treatment reserved for the Kuwaitis who participated in the flotillas to Gaza. Against a backdrop of atrophy of the space granted to civil society, the activists were treated as a threat to national security, questioned on their return and banned from leaving the territory, according to sources close to the matter. In a country where solidarity with Palestine was until now an integral part of national identity, the fact that pro-Gaza activists are targeted by the state security apparatus suggests a change in political position vis-à-vis Israel.
For there to be “normalization”, there must in fact be a national climate which makes it possible to muzzle the opposition by suppressing official dissent and establishing external alliances in order to give the impression of inevitable evolution. And, as for the Gulf Cooperation Council, bringing Kuwait into unofficial normalization would arguably allow all remaining members to adhere to the Abraham Accords, once the political conditions are met.
For their part, Israel and the Emirates need a success to restore the image of a framework discredited by the genocide in Gaza and then tarnished by the Israeli-American war in Iran.
Popular resentment towards Tehran
Despite the gradual unraveling of its national institutions, Kuwait has until now remained measured in its response to Iranian attacks.
It remains that the strike against Kuwait international airport [le 3 juin, qui a fait un mort et une soixantaine de blessés] will undoubtedly fuel public anger towards Tehran, which has already been rumbling since February. This feeling could be used politically to present normalization not as a strategic choice on the part of the government, but as a security framework that Kuwait can only accept given Iran’s aggressions.
Since they were signed in 2020, the Abraham Accords have been essentially transactional in nature. The signatory Arab countries (United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan) agreed to normalize their relations in return for economic and security advantages provided by the United States and thus turned away from any peace process likely to emerge spontaneously in the region. Sudan was removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism and Washington recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara.
The Emirates have [gagné] a certain diplomatic immunity, which allows them to have free rein to pursue an increasingly muscular foreign policy.
What began as a series of bilateral agreements soon took the form of an organized framework aimed primarily at thwarting Iran’s regional ambitions.
War-proof agreements in Iran
The Israeli-American war in Iran is putting the Abraham Accords to the test, something that has never happened before. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are among the Gulf countries hardest hit by Iranian strikes. The information according to which Israel sent batteries to the Emirates [antiaériennes] and soldiers from the Iron Dome confirm that the agreements were accompanied by security considerations for at least one of the signatories. However, they did not guarantee real protection.
Not only do the Abraham Accords fail to produce a truly deterrent effect, but they expose the signatory countries to the repercussions of Israeli-American expansionism. In the Gulf, agreements are increasingly perceived as a one-way deal – speeches praising peace and economic integration serving here as a pretext for the covert establishment of a security framework whose objective is to move the front lines away from the immediate surroundings of Israel.
Already visible in the “secure zones” that Israel established in Gaza and Lebanon, the architecture of this advanced defense testifies to a regional strategy with a broader aim.
Israel is, for example, trying to establish a military base in Berbera, the main port of Somaliland, located in the Gulf of Aden, a first for the Israeli army at the mouth of the Red Sea. Further north, Israel had built two secret military bases in the western Iraqi desert, one dating from before the current war in Iran, the other having been used during the “Twelve Day War” in June 2025, without Baghdad having given its consent or even having knowledge of it.
Regional unease in the face of Israeli expansionism
What seems to be emerging at the moment is nothing other than a form of Israeli supremacy: a regional military predominance, exercised in several theaters of operations, which extends well beyond the borders of the Jewish state and relies on counterparties in the fields of intelligence and technology, all with complete impunity.
The presence of American bases in the Gulf had already generated a delicate debate on the question of sovereignty, particularly after information (officially denied) suggesting that certain strikes against Iran had been launched from the Gulf.
Adhering to the Abraham Accords in such a context would only accentuate the sovereignty deficit [de ces pays] and would formalize their participation in a security system which almost exclusively benefits Israel.
The Emirates have suggested that they will strengthen their ties with Israel following the Iranian attacks, which could result in the establishment of a permanent Israeli military base on Emirati soil.
Trump’s proposal to condition accession to the Abraham Accords on a treaty with Iran reflects a total ignorance of the consensus that prevails in the region. An alliance that is certainly informal but of notable significance is in fact already emerging between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, with Qatar and Oman being gradually drawn into its orbit.
This alliance is explained not only by a common unease with Israeli expansionism, but also by the feeling that the Emirates have today become the most zealous of Israel’s accomplices among the Arab countries.
