Maintaining contrasting relations with the belligerents, Iran, the United States and Israel, the six Arab countries of the Gulf see their fault lines exposed by the war in the Middle East. The rivalry between the two major petromonarchies, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, is further deepened.
Faced with the diplomatic impasse between Tehran and Washington, the bellicose threats from Donald Trump and the continued blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf petromonarchies are bathed in uncertainty. While waiting for the situation to resolve, they observe their differences, far from being recent, thickening and their differences materializing.
“The differences are not new, but the conflict has accentuated the divisions,” notes Jean-Paul Ghoneim, researcher associated with Iris and specialist in the Gulf countries, contacted by BFM.
First point of disagreement: the follow-up to the war which affected them all economically and militarily. On the one hand, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia promote dialogue and support Pakistan’s mediation efforts. When on the other, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, on the side of the United States and Israel, adopt a rather go-to-war position.
Des relations hétérogènes avec Téhéran
Postures that can be explained historically. If the six countries, united since 1981 within the Gulf Cooperation Council (CGG), have all cohabited with their Persian neighbor for centuries, they do so to varying degrees, and with more or less complexity.
Kuwait is driven by its diplomatic tradition and its geographic location. Oman, without maintaining a strong proximity with Tehran, models its national security on its neutrality. Qatar strengthened its relations with Iran during the blockade imposed against it by its wealthy neighbors between 2017 and 2021.
If Saudi Arabia is wary of Iran perceived as a rival on the regional scene, it is even more keen on stability, necessary for its ambitions. In this sense, Riyadh participated in mid-April in the attempt at mediation between Washington and Tehran alongside Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan.
Beyond the Iranian question, Saudi Arabia is moving closer to these three countries of the Sunni axis to diversify its alliances and no longer depend solely on the United States for its security. “They want to maintain the American defensive umbrella but the Saudis are seeking to build other axes of defense,” Jean-Paul Ghoneim explains to us. According to NBC News, if Donald Trump abruptly stopped his “Project Freedom” operation to escort ships in the Strait of Hormuz, it is because Saudi Arabia banned the United States from using its bases and airspace.
Despite their conciliatory posture, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia were targeted by Iranian drones following the launch of the American-Israeli operation against Tehran on February 28. But much less than the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, more hostile to Tehran.
“Bahrain has a specificity: the ruling family is Sunni and around half of its population is Shiite,” notes researcher Jean-Paul Ghoneim. Bahrain suspects Tehran of supporting the Shiite component in order to shake up power. The United Arab Emirates consider the Islamic Republic as a threat to their security.
Target of retaliation
In the Gulf, the Emirates are those which have most shown their support for the American-Israeli operation. They are also those who were most targeted by Tehran’s reprisals. The country has been hit by nearly 3,000 attacks since February 28, according to an official Emirati count, concentrating more than half of the strikes on all Gulf countries. Iranian drones have not only targeted installations of their American allies, but also civil, energy infrastructure and even emblematic buildings, shattering, among other things, the aura of stability of Dubai, the epicenter of business, tourism and investment in the region before the conflict.
Tehran even targeted its Emirati neighbor again this Monday, May 4, despite the truce in force since April 8. An oil site in the east of the country, in Fujairah, in the immediate vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz, was hit by drones, while three cruise missiles were intercepted. “We are probably their favorite target,” Emirati political science expert Abdulkhaleq Abdulla told AFP. “Every time they are angry with the United States or Israel (…) they will shoot us.”
Like Bahrain, the Emirates normalized their relationship with Israel, Iran’s sworn enemy, with the Abraham Accords in 2020, making them prime prey for Tehran, said HA Hellyer, Middle East specialist at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense. and Security Studies” of London. According to the American media Axios, during the conflict, the Hebrew state deployed its Iron Dome air defense system to the Emirates, pushing their military and security cooperation to an unprecedented level.
The rivalry between the Emirates and Saudi Arabia fueled
“The rapprochement between the Emirates and Israel creates tensions with Qatar or Saudi Arabia who take a dim view of this,” assures Jean-Paul Ghoneim. The two great Gulf rivals, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, who are vying for leadership of the region, are at odds over their relations with Israel.
Saudi Arabia has been more hostile to the Jewish state since the war in Gaza. The country is committed to the recognition of a state of Palestine and has suspended the process of rapprochement with Israel, hoped for by the United States. At the end of January, an influential voice in Riyadh, the former dean of King Saud University, Ahmed al-Tuwaijri, accused Abu Dhabi of playing “Israel’s Trojan horse in the Arab world”, recalls Le Monde.
As mentioned previously, the two sovereigns disagree more generally on the follow-up to be given to the conflict with Iran. Riyadh, which has suffered fewer attacks than the Emirates, “considers that there are more risks in acting than in doing nothing, while the Emiratis are of the opposite opinion”, explains researcher HA Hellyer. Even before the start of the conflict in the Middle East, this specialist affirmed in the columns of Le Monde at the end of January that “one fears excess ambition” while “the other, inaction”.
“Saudi Arabia favors de-escalation and internal transformation, considering regional stability as an issue to be managed and contained. The United Arab Emirates, for their part, perceive the regional order as fragile and believe that preventive intervention is necessary to remodel it before it collapses,” he added.
After years of latent rivalry, the divorce between the two countries – allies for a decade – was ratified at the end of 2025 due to the bombing by Saudi Arabia of a port in Yemen used by the Emirates. The two petromonarchies are opposed on the Yemeni issue. But the war in the Middle East only fuels their rivalry.
“For a very long time, the Emirates were in the lead in modernization, then they were challenged by Saudi Arabia with the arrival of Mohammed Ben Salman. Initially, things went well, the President of the Emirates Mohammed Ben Zayed being practically a mentor of MBS, then their relationship became rivalry,” recalls specialist Jean-Paul Ghoneim.
Latest episode: on April 28, the Emirates announced their withdrawal from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Abu Dhabi was OPEC’s fourth largest producer by volume and has very significant unexploited production capacity, an essential lever for the group when it must regulate the market. In the midst of a surge in oil prices due to the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, the Emirates are becoming a competing player on the market.
If the Emirati Minister of Energy, Suhail Al Mazrouei, insisted that the decision is “not political”, it is difficult not to see it as the result of a break with Saudi Arabia, the figurehead of OPEC.
“The Emirates have wanted to leave OPEC for a long time, they want to increase their production and not be hampered by quotas, this is nothing new,” recalls researcher Jean-Paul Ghoneim. “But it is above all the timing which raises the question. It is an additional mark of rivalry.”
From an economic point of view, the competition risks extending beyond the Saudi and Emirati borders and affecting all the Gulf countries. Half of them expect their economies to contract this year, according to the IMF. The loss of oil revenues, the need for reconstruction after the Iranian attacks and the increase in military spending will create budgetary pressure which risks accentuating “the economic rivalries, often zero-sum, between the Gulf States”, indeed advances to AFP Frédéric Schneider, of the Middle East Council on Global Affairs.
Gulf countries are affected to varying degrees by the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. “The Emirates and Saudi Arabia have the means to export oil outside the strait and Oman is practically to the north of the strait. On the other hand, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain suffer from not being able to export”, analyzes the researcher at Iris, Jean-Paul Ghoneim, who does not at the moment state “divisions expressed” on this subject.
Apparently, the Gulf countries display their unity, as, again, during the meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council on April 28. But Tehran is not fooled by the tensions playing out behind the scenes and is delighted to see discord spreading to its Arab neighbors.
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