Persian Gulf states are quietly relieved that the 12-day war with Israel has weakened the Islamic Republic, security experts told Iran International, though Tehran's Arab rivals prefer a declawed Iran to a regime change that would lead to instability.
The surprise Israeli attacks that started on June 13 were publicly condemned by Persian Gulf states which oppose Iranian hegemony in the region but seek calm to boost domestic growth agendas.
“These disruptions are of significant concern to Emirati policymakers who place a premium on regional calm and continuity,” said a senior security expert in the United Arab Emirates.
“The UAE remains concerned about the broader implications of regional conflict, economically, socially as well as politically," the expert told Iran International on condition of anonymity due to political sensitivities.
The United Arab Emirates, along with Morocco and Bahrain, is a party to the US-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020 which normalized relations between Israel.
Collective unease with Iran contributed to the historic shift toward normalization, experts say.
Last month, Abu Dhabi publicly condemned the Israeli attacks as a violation of Iran's sovereignty, but the attacks degraded the military might of a rival whose nuclear ambitions its neighbors long feared.
The campaign saw Israel gain control of Iran's airspace within days as it assassinated top military leaders and degraded Iranian missile capabilities.
However, any prolonged conflict or upheaval inside Iran would be viewed as a potential risk to the regional countries' tourism, trade and foreign investment, a taste of which was offered by the closing of air space across the Persian Gulf and crashing stock markets amid the conflict.
The United Arab Emirates is also home to around 500,000-800,000 Iranians who have been a historic force in the country’s trade and commerce concentrated in Dubai.
Interest in relative calm puts Arab capitals potentially at odds with some Iranians' hopes for fundamental change in the wake of the war, which does not appear to be forthcoming despite the punishing air war.
“The UAE takes a pragmatic approach and recognizes that broad systemic change in Iran is unlikely to be externally driven," the expert added.
Risks of regime change in Iran
Iran's southern neighbors are pleased with Tehran's chastisement but will maintain good relations for the sake of regional peace, said Emirati political commentator and academic Abdulkhaleq Abdulla.
The region "is better off now that Iran lost most of its bargaining power, namely its regional proxies, nuclear and missile powers,” he told Iran International.
“But even a weakened Iran remains a key threat to (Persian) Gulf security so the Arab states will continue with their policy of opening up to Iran and show solidarity with its people.”
The fragile ceasefire and the vulnerability of Iran's ruling system is likely to preoccupy Iran's neighbors.
Aimen Dean, of Bahraini-Saudi descent but famous for his deep work for the British spy agency MI6 embedded inside Al Qaeda, said the truce was no panacea.
“The relief isn’t here yet. Not a single government here in this region wants a regime change at least for now,” the managing director of Five Dimensions Consultants in Dubai said.
“They are afraid of two particular scenarios. The first is that an uprising happens and you end up with defections in the army and then the whole country collapses into civil war," Dean added, warning of refugee crisis on Arab shores.
The alternative scenario feared is the possibility of an ethnic breakup of Iran if the government should fall. “Nobody wants that as that also will result in a major flow of refugees and a failed state where people have access to nuclear materials,” Dean explained.
Instead, in the halls of power in the Persian Gulf, from regional juggernaut Saudi Arabia to the tiny island nation of Bahrain, Dean said there is the hope that a “defanged and declawed Iran” would be better contained within its own borders.
“That’s the ideal outcome.”
