The Arab Gulf States in the Line of Fire

Summary

Podcast Summary: It Could Happen Here

Episode: The Arab Gulf States in the Line of Fire
Date: June 11, 2026
Host: Dana Al Kurd
Guest: Andrew Lieber (Carnegie Middle East Program; Tulane University)

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Episode Overview

In this compelling episode, Dana Al Kurd hosts Andrew Lieber for an in-depth analysis of the Arab Gulf states (the GCC – Gulf Cooperation Council) and their complex positioning during the ongoing Iran war. The conversation seeks to untangle widespread media misconceptions and clarify the Gulf states’ true motives, strategic divides, and the war’s impact on regional and domestic politics. The discussion places special emphasis on Saudi Arabia and the UAE, examines divergent attitudes toward Israel and the Abraham Accords, and reflects on how war dynamics are reshaping the Gulf’s relationships both with each other and with global powers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fragmented GCC Responses to the Iran War

[03:43 – 06:41]

• The Gulf isn’t a unified bloc; distinct subcamps are emerging, even deepening amid the war.
  • Saudi Arabia (with Kuwait & Qatar): Favors mediation—aims for de-escalation and the restoration of energy flows in the Strait of Hormuz.
  • United Arab Emirates (UAE): More hawkish, at times supporting military action, though recently downplaying its earlier positions.
  • Oman: Strongly critical of both US/Israeli actions and Iranian reprisals, advocating for continued negotiations even when others give up.
• Lieber stresses how the war “deepened the divides” despite initially appearing to unite the GCC against a common threat.

Quote — Andrew Lieber [03:42]:
“Even though initially the Iran war seemed like it would paper over the cracks in these divisions, in many ways it's also deepened the divides as different countries have interpreted the threats posed by Iran and by Israel and potentially even the United States in different ways.”

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2. Fact-Checking Media Narratives about Saudi Arabia

[06:41 – 09:50]

• Lieber criticizes US media for overgeneralizations, particularly the notion that Saudi Arabia lobbied for the war or covertly encouraged US aggression.
  • While both the UAE and Saudi Arabia engaged in covert airstrikes (unpublicized at first), Lieber says there is “broad skepticism” about claims of Saudi instigation.
  • Economic and domestic stability—rather than belligerence—drives Saudi decision-making.
  • The Gulf states are not eager to oppose Trump directly, instead offering cautious, conditional advice.
• The conversation underscores that Gulf actors are not primary in US-Iran negotiations—they lack real influence.

Quote — Andrew Lieber [07:17]: “I'm broadly skeptical of accounts that Saudi Arabia, and specifically Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman advocated for this war, pushed for the war... Generally, I think Saudi Arabia's view is they want to keep the geopolitical peace in the surrounding neighborhood because otherwise Saudi Arabia can't get the kind of foreign investment or the kind of economic partnerships it needs.”

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3. Economic and Infrastructural Toll of the War

[09:50–11:17]

• Iran has deliberately targeted both US military bases and Gulf civilian infrastructure to maximize economic pain:
  • Civilian targets (desalination plants, LNG facilities) were hit, creating economic shocks in Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain.
  • Saudi Arabia and the UAE weather the crisis better than others due to alternative export routes and higher prices.
  • The regional toll translates globally—higher costs for fuel, fertilizer, and more.

Quote — Andrew Lieber [09:59]:
“Iran targeted not only US Military bases but also civilian infrastructure in an attempt to put a lot of economic pressure on these countries, especially the uae and even countries that had sought to mediate between the conflict or had been more openly critical of any US Military adventurism like Qatar basically have their entire economy frozen right now...”

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4. The Abraham Accords and Gulf Attitudes Toward Israel

[13:29–16:48]

• Trump administration rhetoric ties normalization (“Abraham Accords”) to war outcomes, seeking diplomatic wins.
• Lieber argues that normalization incentives have already been spent; for Saudi Arabia, further concessions won’t move the needle.
• For Gulf leaders, the risks of openly aligning with Israel now outweigh benefits, particularly given ongoing violence against Palestinians.
  • UAE, conversely, sees security and political gains in tightening its relationship with Israel.
  • UAE received Iron Dome systems from Israel during the conflict.
• Lieber characterizes the Abraham Accords as “bankrupt as a framework for US Policy” but asserts that the UAE-Israel partnership is enduring.

Quote — Andrew Lieber [13:48]:
“The Abraham Accords as a framework for US Policy towards the Middle east was pretty bankrupt in every direction. On the one hand, all of the carrots that the United States was supposed to offer to encourage countries to normalize ties with Israel had effectively already been given out.”

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5. Israel, Domestic Legitimacy, and the Palestinian Issue

[16:48–21:37]

• Saudi Arabia is highly unlikely to formalize normalization with Israel without real progress toward a Palestinian state, which remains politically impossible for Israeli leadership.
• The Palestinian issue is deeply tied to domestic legitimacy and popular sentiment in Gulf states; leaders cannot ignore it due to internal demographic pressures (unemployment, sectarian divides) and anti-regime narratives fueled by perceived injustice toward Palestinians.
• The war has revived and entrenched pro-Palestinian sentiment among Gulf populations, including a new generation shaped by Gaza’s devastation.

Quote — Dana Al Kurd [18:19]:
“In some parts of the Gulf [the Palestinian issue] is connected to people's anti regime sentiment, which of course the Iranian regime is very good at stoking and exploiting... It's also, like you said, there are domestic implications for all of these regimes.”

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6. Media Discourse and Shifting Propaganda

[21:37–23:43]

• UAE (and to an extent Saudi Arabia) previously used heavy anti-Palestinian rhetoric as part of their normalization efforts.
  • The information climate has changed—public pushback now makes overt anti-Palestinian campaigns riskier and less frequent.
  • UAE still cooperates closely with Israel but is more discreet, avoiding publicity around highly controversial issues (e.g., Netanyahu’s visits).

Quote — Andrew Lieber [22:19]:
“It's much harder. Like you can't get away with that anymore because the pushback online would be incredibly intense. And likewise, even from the uae, we see continued coordination with Israel. But it's interesting how the UAE denies or doesn't confirm certain things...”

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7. Strategic Lessons & Shifts in Gulf State Foreign Policy

[24:37–26:44]

• Moving forward, Gulf states will diversify their diplomatic and security partnerships beyond the US, but not necessarily toward China or Russia.
  • Saudi Arabia will look toward “other regional middle powers it can trust and work with – Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan.”
  • UAE will “double or triple down” on its Israel relationship.
  • The “hedging” strategy is evolving, with states seeking to shape Gulf security and diplomacy on their own terms.
• Analysts should expect quiet but lasting shifts in alliances and policy as Gulf states digest the lessons of the 2026 war.

Quote — Andrew Lieber [24:53]:
“Their strategies for the course of this war still revolved around trying to influence US Thinking, frame how they were viewed in the United States. But I do think it is going to trigger changes down the line... we're going to see developments three or four years down the line that have been cooking in the background as a result of what has happened in 2026.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• Andrew Lieber on GCC’s Divisions:
  “It's also deepened the divides as different countries have interpreted the threats posed by Iran and by Israel and potentially even the United States in different ways.”
  – [03:42]

• Skepticism on Saudi Urging War:
  “I'm broadly skeptical of accounts that Saudi Arabia, and specifically Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman advocated for this war, pushed for the war...”
  – [07:17]

• Iran’s Targeting Strategy:
  “Iran targeted not only US Military bases but also civilian infrastructure in an attempt to put a lot of economic pressure on these countries...”
  – [09:59]

• On the Abraham Accords’ Bankruptcy:
  “The Abraham Accords as a framework for US Policy towards the Middle east was pretty bankrupt in every direction.”
  – [13:48]

• On Public Sentiment and the Palestinian Issue:
  “What kind of October 7th showed or changed was that that sentiment had really never gone away as much as it had seemed...”
  – [19:03]

• Propaganda and Public Backlash:
  “It's much harder...you can't get away with that anymore because the pushback online would be incredibly intense...”
  – [22:19]

• Looking Toward a Post-War Future:
  “I think it is going to trigger changes down the line...developments three or four years down the line that have been cooking in the background as a result of what has happened in 2026.”
  – [24:53]

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Takeaways

• Gulf States Are Not Monolithic: The war has exposed and exacerbated pre-existing divisions. The GCC’s response is fractured by diverging threat perceptions, economic vulnerabilities, and political calculations.
• Saudi Arabia’s Priority is Stability, Not Aggression: Despite speculation, Riyadh seeks regional calm for domestic development and to attract investment.
• UAE-Israel Axis Is Strengthening: Security cooperation persists, but the UAE faces growing challenges in managing this relationship publicly.
• Palestinian Issue Is a Domestic Minefield: Gulf monarchs cannot ignore popular solidarity with Palestine, as it is now a source of internal (and potentially regime-threatening) discontent.
• Future of Regional Security: Gulf states will seek regional, sometimes independent alliances and approaches, reducing reliance on the US, though not substituting it wholesale with China or Russia.

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Suggested Further Reading

• Andrew Lieber’s profile at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Dana Al Kurd’s research on Palestinian and Gulf domestic politics (to be linked in episode notes)

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This episode provides a nuanced, up-to-date guide to the shifting sands of Gulf geopolitics amid crisis, challenging simple narratives and shedding light on what’s really driving decision-makers in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Doha, and beyond.

Transcript

[Dana Al Kurd]

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[Dana Al Kurd]

Cool Zone Media hello everyone and welcome to It Could Happen Here. My name is Dana Al Kurd. I'm a researcher and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics, and today I have with me Andrew Lieber. Andrew Lieber is a non resident scholar in the Carnegie Middle East Program and an assistant professor in Tulane University's Department of Political Science and their Middle east and North Africa Studies Program. His research and teaching focuses on the domestic politics and international relations of the Middle east and North Africa region with a particular focus on Saudi Arabia. Andrew, thanks so much for joining us.

[Andrew Lieber]

Thanks for having me.

[Dana Al Kurd]

So I wanted to have you on today because, well, the war in Iran, but also because I think there's been a lot of reporting and some that's not very well sourced in mainstream media like the New York Times about the GCC states, GCC Gulf Cooperation Council so the Arab Gulf states about their motivations and the actions of the Gulf states during this war. I think that there's been a lot of obfuscation for variety of reasons. So I wanted to bring you on, given your expertise to kind of clarify fact from fiction on some of that. We're recording May 28th. So maybe people have seen this. Trump also recently threatened to bomb Amen. Who were acting as mediators initially. So yeah, I wanted to go through all the main GCC actors and get your analysis of their behavior during this war, what they want to happen when it's over.

[Andrew Lieber]

Sure, yeah. Happy to do so. I think one thing that has been a little hard for people to follow maybe has been the tendency for you US And English language media outlets talk about the Gulf states or the G states or what they want from this conflict. But even heading into this war, there were already key differences among these countries. There was a diplomatic and increasingly potentially a military rift between Saudi Arabia and the neighboring United Arab Emirates. There have been past disputes between different Gulf countries as well. And even though initially the Iran war seemed like it would paper over the cracks in these divisions, in many ways it's also deepened the divides as different countries have interpreted the threats posed by Iran and by Israel and potentially even the United States in different ways. So at present we can maybe think of three broad camps within the gcc. So there's Saudi Arabia, the largest by land mass of these countries, and to a lesser extent Kuwait and also Qatar have taken the approach of trying to just get things back to quote, unquote normal or like a new normal, supporting mediation efforts by other countries like Pakistan and now at least for Qatar, increasingly engaged in direct mediation to try to lock in some kind of agreement that restores flows of energy and other goods in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, the key body of water that allows things in and out of the Persian Gulf. You know, in one direction, you have the United Arab Emirates, which has presented itself as kind of much more hawkish in terms of its willingness to potentially use military force against Iran or to join the United States in a military effort to open the Strait of Hormuz. In the past few days, it's been quietly walking back some of those positions, but it has tried to draw a contrast between its more assertive stance towards Iranian actions in the region and Saudi Arabia. And then the other direction, as discussed, we have the Sultanate of Oman, which leaned much further in the other direction during the war, being the only country that criticized openly from the start both the US And Israeli led attacks on Iran and Iran's reprisals. On the other side of the Gulf, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al Bou Saidi went on US Television prior to the war to make the case that these were still possible. Ongoing talks between the US And Iran could bear fruit that was unsuccessful as an intervention. But also, Omani diplomats at various points have offered much more critical commentary of the United States, but they have likewise kind of walked that back, or at least not emphasized it as much in recent weeks. But clearly there is a narrative critical of their role that circulates in some parts of D.C. which percolated its way up into the president saying, well, if Oman is not going to cooperate with certain things, then we'll just bomb them until they do. Which is not the nicest way to ask for the cooperation of other countries in a sensitive geopolitical issue. But so it goes those.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Right. We're not the most effective these days, let's say. Yeah. So thank you for kind of laying that out. There are so many questions I have. I want to talk about kind of how Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, you've already mentioned differ on this issue, but also like how their differences speak to different visions for the region, especially vis a vis Israel. But also, just like before we get to that, there's been a lot of reporting about how Saudi Arabia is, like, secretly really gung ho about the war and is encouraging the Trump administration to be more aggressive. What weight do you put on those reports?

[Andrew Lieber]

Yeah, I mean, those have been around since the start of the conflict. I'll preface this by giving a major caveat, which is that every week that goes by, we learn more about what we didn't know earlier in the war. We know now that both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have carried out airstrikes on Iran at certain points that they didn't publicize that. But I'm broadly skeptical of accounts that Saudi Arabia, and specifically Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman advocated for this war, pushed for the war. Saudi Arabia and Iran have not always had very great relations, but they nominally re established diplomatic ties in 2023. And generally, I think Saudi Arabia's view is they want to keep the geopolitical peace in the surrounding neighborhood because otherwise Saudi Arabia can't get the kind of foreign investment or the kind of economic partnerships it needs to generate economic growth and employ its citizen population, a major political concern. And I think even the United Arab Emirates prior to this war was not pushing for it actively. I think these countries also don't want to tell, with the possible exception of Oman, don't want to tell President Trump no directly. So my understanding of things is that everything prior to the war was phrased in a kind of conditional we would recommend you don't do this, but just make sure, if you just think this is a good idea, that you can militarily defeat Iran in a rather quick and decisive fashion. Of course, that banked on the United States, current policymakers having an accurate view of their own capabilities, which seem to be not a correct assumption. But I think that also during the war, you had kind of a panic in different directions, like a belief that, well, I guess if the United States has gone to war, clearly they could solve this militarily. Right. So I think you had some leaders, especially the United Arab Emirates, pushing the United States to, like, finish the job, don't leave the conflict in a state where it's very clear that the United States can militarily force Iran to do certain things. But you also haven't kind of secured meaningful concessions from Iran. And that, I think, is, I guess, one thing that the United States now, again, with the possible exception of Oman, is concern about where they get left if there is any kind of deal. It's very clear that they do not have a seat at the table in terms of these negotiations. And there's certainly a lot of complaints online or in media outlets in the Gulf of about that fact. But it doesn't change the reality that these are US Iran negotiations with maybe some consultation with Israel, you know, maybe some communication with Saudi Arabia, with the uae, but not a ton of consultation of them.

[Dana Al Kurd]

And just to be clear, they've paid the brunt of the price here. And Iran has attacked civilian infrastructure and desalination plants and all those things.

[Andrew Lieber]

Yeah, no, I mean, Iran calculated, they think, well, we could attack Israel, but most of the rockets and missiles be shot down. Israel's farther away. It's harder to hit them with a larger payload, whereas Ukraine and hit a lot of infrastructure in the Gulf. It's been very clear that Iran targeted not only US Military bases but also civilian infrastructure in an attempt to put a lot of economic pressure on these countries, especially the uae and even countries that had sought to mediate between the conflict or had been more openly critical of any US Military adventurism like Qatar basically have their entire economy frozen right now because they can get very little of the liquid natural gas they produce in or out. Same thing with Kuwait, same thing with Bahrain. One interesting maybe unintended consequence of this though, is that some of the Gulf states are doing better than others economically from this Saudi Arabia and the UAE have made up a significant portion of the ground lost from lost oil exports because they can export some oil over land, and Oman is exporting about as much oil as before, but at a much higher price. So economically, or even doing perhaps better. But yeah, these are the countries that have primarily paid the price in direct terms. And then by extension, every country that relies on their energy supplies is also also paying a price in terms of higher costs for cooking gas, diesel, fertilizer and so on.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Right.

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[Dana Al Kurd]

Really, this is an American Israeli war, even if the United States kind of holds the final say. But you know, recently on social media and in a number of repeated statements, President Trump himself and his administration have talked about the Abraham Accords and normalization with Israel, tying it into possible outcomes for this war. How do you explain that?

[Andrew Lieber]

I'm sure your audience is familiar with the Abraham Accords, but the diplomatic normalization between the UAE, Bahrain and some other countries and Israel back in 2020, I think for President Trump, talking about this now is motivated by a sense of there's a real loss of face and status by having talked about how he was going to have this decisive victory against Iran and then it being a disaster on every single front. So I think there's now going to be a hunt for some other kind of quick win that he can show. But I think also the lead up to this war demonstrated that the Abraham Accords as a framework for US Policy towards the Middle east was pretty bankrupt in every direction. On the one hand, all of the carrots that the United States was supposed to offer to encourage countries to normalize ties with Israel had effectively already been given out. So for Saudi Arabia, it was like, here are all the concessions that we were going to use in order to encourage you to normalize ties with Israel. We can just give those to you as long as you promise to invest money in the United States. So that's, that's already been allowed to happen. At the same time, the downside for these countries in normalizing ties with Israel is pretty high. There's nothing that Israeli leaders at present can do to guarantee that there won't be another catastrophic and genocidal war against the Palestinian population. That's something that a Saudi leadership that is dealing with potentially rising unemployment, that other countries dealing with ethnic or sectarian divides within their borders, not something they really want to take on as well. And I think that the war has kind of created divergent perceptions of Israel as well. I think for countries like Saudi Arabia and especially Oman, there's a view of Israel, even for a newer generation of leadership like Mohammed bin Salman, who were not particularly opposed to a greater role for Israel in the region, greater ties with Israel, or just now concerned about Israel as a chaotic and unreliable partner in the region that will throw the security interests of its allies to the wind at a moment's notice. Their interpretation of the Abraham Accords is that it did nothing to protect the UAE and Bahrain from attacks by Iran or from getting dragged into an Israeli led or partly Israeli led war in the other direction. However, the UAE itself kind of views its ties with Israel as more important than ever. Their view is like, well, this is a region of unreliable actors. Israel has a capable military, even if they don't admit it openly. Israel is the only nuclear armed actor in the region. And Israel did send, what's it called, the Iron Dome defense technology to the UAE during the conflict. On the one hand, I think we're just as we saw during the Biden administration, the Abraham Accords remains this kind of like, cargo cult for American foreign policymakers. This idea that we'll just say the Abraham Accords and it'll magically make countries kind of change their foreign policy orientation. But I think the Abraham Accords as a uae, Israeli security, economic, political alliance in the region is stronger than ever and will continue to be the case into the future.

[Dana Al Kurd]

But that Saudi Arabia will not participate in the way that the Trump administration assumes.

[Andrew Lieber]

Yeah, I think that Saudi Arabia will continue their policy. They've had ever since October 7, or at least since roughly thereafter, of saying, like, well, we're not ruling out, we just have some conditions in order to move on that. And then.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Right.

[Andrew Lieber]

You know, I don't think those are unreasonable conditions of making progress towards a Palestinian state, but they are not anything that Netanyahu or even probably any other political coalition that comes to power in Israel is willing to even think about. So, you know, I don't really see it happening soon. I suppose the thing is Trump is so unpredictable that he could just like, lash out and declare that he's going to do something to Saudi Arabia if they don't normalize. But then it's a real question of, like, well, how long is he going to sustain that? And like, what does he do if Saudi Arabia or Mohammed bin Salman himself snaps back. Over this past winter, we saw, for example, as part of that diplomatic rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, we saw Emirati backed forces in Yemen make gains. A lot of commentary online about like, oh, Mohammed bin Salman isn't willing to do anything about this. And then ultimately, why end up. The Saudi Foreign ministry condemned the UAE's role in Yemen and Saudi forces bombed like an Emirati shipment coming into Yemen. So there's also the potential here as well. Like these are two political systems where power is highly personalized around specific individuals. And so if President Trump decides to go down that route, there's a possibility for this to become a very personalized conflict.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Right. And I think it's important for listeners to understand the connection, why the Palestinian issue holds such weight for Gulf leaders. You mentioned, for example, ethnic and sectarian divides in particular countries. I'm thinking Bahrain or, you know, rising unemployment and dissent and discontent in places like Saudi Arabia. It's because either explicitly or implicitly, the Palestinian issue in some parts of the Gulf is connected to people's anti regime sentiment, which of course the Iranian regime is very good at stoking and exploiting. And so it's not just that they're worried about regional instability outside their borders. It's also, like you said, there are domestic implications for all of these regimes. Yeah.

[Andrew Lieber]

I think if we want to turn back the clock to like the first Trump administration and even right up to October 7th in places like Saudi Arabia, I think there was a belief that you could just suppress people's solidarity with Palestine or that this was like a dead issue for most Saudi citizens. But what kind of October 7th showed or changed was that that sentiment had really never gone away as much as it had seemed. And also that there's now an entirely new generation that has seen the atrocities perpetrated in Gaza over the past few years that is now well aware of everything that has been done. And this is not something you can hide from people or pretend that it will go. And it's even harder to do so if people aren't seeing kind of rapid economic gains in their own lives. So it becomes yet another thing that, yeah, if you wanted to fault Saudi leaders for kind of weakness and the international stage, if you wanted to fault them for not demonstrating political courage, that could be a cudgel to use against them. So inside Saudi Arabia, the one consistent thing over the past five, six, seven years is the complete suppression of talking about the Palestinian issue because political authorities are so worried that if people start talking about one political issue, maybe they start linking it to other concerns. At the same time. There has been a shift among kind of regime aligned commentators from if this were back in 2019, 2020, you would hear them say, well, Saudi Arabia is now a country that acts in its own national interest. That means we don't have to listen to the Palestinian leadership. That's their own concern. Now you hear kind of same tune, different variation, where it's like, because Saudi Arabia is acting in its own national interest, we can decide that we want to act in solidarity with the Palestinian leadership, not just do whatever the west tells us to do. But then this leads into, I think, kind of the polarization among some of the Gulf countries, because it's the exact opposite dynamic for the uae. Or the UAE goes the route of presenting itself as closer than ever to the United States, very aware that they can use Saudi skepticism towards Israel as something to attack Saudi Arabia in US Commentary and US Media markets. And then even if the countries seem to be able to patch these differences up from time to time, it's going to keep driving them apart as well.

[Dana Al Kurd]

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but. But during the first Trump administration, the propaganda around Palestinians emerging from the UAE was extremely vehement, let's say. Like there was so much rhetoric coming out of uae, like government officials and associated influencers and things like that, that was attempting to kind of change the image of the Palestinian to an Arab audience. And even though you're right, that they are clinging more than ever to the Abraham Accords, again, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that like they can't do that as much anymore. I'm not seeing as much of that kind of rhetoric and kind of anti Palestinian racism that I used to see.

[Andrew Lieber]

Yeah. And it used to be that you could walk this like, I don't want to call it a fine line, but you could play this game. I'm more familiar with this in the Saudi case. But the rhetoric would go, of course, Saudi Arabia stands with the Saudi issue, but the Palestinian leadership, they would basically adopt the same tropes we were familiar with the United States, like the Palestinian leadership never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Or they would just do a direct translation of that. Yeah, but yeah, it's much harder. Like you can't get away with that anymore because the pushback online would be incredibly intense. And likewise, even from the uae, we see continued coordination with Israel. But it's interesting how the UAE denies or doesn't confirm certain things. So bombing Iran during the war, the UAE Foreign Ministry kind of does a wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Like, well, look at our policies where we said we would retaliate if we were attacked. Draw your own conclusions. But whereas when it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu, like, visiting the uae, they're like, absolutely not. This is false news.

[Dana Al Kurd]

It did not happen. Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Lieber]

And I think that points to the extent to which especially Netanyahu has become extremely toxic and hard to separate from that. And that even though I don't think the UAE is going to be hosting any, like, major Palestinian solidarity events anytime soon, at the same time, they're not like, you know, this is not like a warm piece in terms of how they're approaching Israelis either. I'm pretty sure the UAE even condemned the recent law basically allowing executions of the death penalty.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Yeah.

[Andrew Lieber]

Specifically defined to basically be Palestinians in the West Bank. Also condemned Israel's actions in Lebanon as well. So it's become harder to mount the kind of media campaigns against Palestinians, I think, partly because they backfire and then partly in recognition that this was done for years and years. And then ultimately, what distinguishes Saudi Arabia from the UAE is not that their citizen publics have different views about the Palestinians, but just that in the UAE, you can surveil, coerce, and bribe your citizen population so much better than in Saudi Arabia. It's like, sorry to be kind of crass about it, but the juice just isn't worth the squeeze in terms of the Saudi monarchy relative to at least being in this kind of middle path where they're maybe not pushing the United States too much for Palestinian statehood, but are like, doing at least the bare minimum to keep, I guess, the idea of a two state solution alive.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Yeah. And to stay adhering to the Arab peace initiative in some capacity. What's kind of the takeaway, do you think, for all of these countries in the aftermath of this war? Do you foresee a change in their positions vis a vis the United States in particular?

[Andrew Lieber]

For years and years, analysts of the Gulf have been talking about, like, these states hedging. And I think in one direction, this war showed that most of that amounted to just trying to get more concessions from the United States. You had a couple European countries show up, you had Pakistan get involved a little bit. But their strategies for the course of this war still revolved around trying to influence US Thinking, frame how they were viewed in the United States. But I do think it is going to trigger changes down the line. We saw Saudi Arabia normalize ties with Iran four years after the United States failed to intervene, after Iranian line groups attacked Saudi oil fields. I think something similar here, where we're going to see developments three or four years down the line that have been cooking in the background as a result of what has happened in 2026. I think we're starting to see some of that now. And it's not going to be like, oh, we're going to get a Chinese military base in the Gulf. It's going to be other things. Like we're seeing Saudi Arabia try to work with what it views as the other regional middle powers it can trust and work with. Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan. The uae, meanwhile, is trying to double or triple down on its direct security ties with Israel. But I think the way these ghost states are going to react is going to figure out how can we shape the diplomacy around the region, how can we shape our own security in ways that don't rely on the United States but aren't like, how to put it, I think in Washington, D.C. because of the obsession with Chinese influence in the world, there's always this belief of like, oh, like, if not us, then it will be like the Chinese will be involved, think the reality is going to look very different. I don't think China wants to get involved in a security fashion in the Gulf, but there are other countries that have an interest in like some degree of peaceful economic development or some degree of like maximalized security. And that's going to be the future of these state security relations.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Well, thank you so much, Andrew. Really appreciate your expertise. I'll link your profile at Carnegie in the show Notes as well as given that we talked about kind of the Palestinian question in, in relation to some of these other issues domestically in the Gulf states. I'll also link to some of my own research on this topic. So thank you so much.

[Andrew Lieber]

Thanks for having me.

[Dana Al Kurd]

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