Rebuilding trust with Iran will be a difficult task even if relations can be restored, Dr Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to President Sheikh Mohamed, said on Monday, after six months of war and Iranian attacks on Gulf states.
“Relations can be restored more quickly than trust,” Dr Gargash told the Hili Forum in Abu Dhabi. “Trust is a mountain we will have to climb.”
He added there was nevertheless a path towards rebuilding relations, adding that the Gulf could unlock significant economic opportunities if Iran and its neighbours established “a durable principle of non-belligerence and mutual respect”.
He said Iran’s aggression against Gulf states had been “a serious strategic miscalculation” that damaged its relationships with its neighbours and deepened its isolation.
“The way out of this conflict does not run through threatening your neighbours or burning bridges with them. It runs through rebuilding these bridges, pursuing de-escalation and working towards a durable political settlement,” Dr Gargash said.
He said any future dialogue with Iran should go beyond transactional issues and address broader strategic questions facing the Gulf, including security, non-interference, freedom of navigation, economic co-operation and rebuilding confidence.
“If diplomacy is to succeed, Iran’s intentions will ultimately have to be judged by its actions, not simply by its words,” he said.
When the war started at the end of February with US and Israeli air attacks against Iran, Tehran retaliated by striking US Gulf allies and effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz. The strait is a critical maritime chokepoint that usually carries around a quarter of global seaborne oil trade and significant volumes of liquefied natural gas and fertilisers.
While Iran claimed it was aiming at US interests in the region, it also hit important energy and civilian infrastructure in all six Gulf states.
“In all, Iran launched some 3,300 missiles and drones at the UAE. The vast majority of these attacks were targeted at civilian infrastructure and were indiscriminate,” said Dr Gargash.
“I could describe this simply as a military success story,” he added. Gulf states intercepted large numbers of Iranian missiles and drones, but some strikes breached their air defences and damaged critical infrastructure.
In Kuwait, Iranian attacks damaged power and water facilities, including desalination plants, and disrupted operations at Kuwait International Airport. In Qatar, a missile strike caused extensive damage to QatarEnergy’s facilities at Ras Laffan, one of the world’s largest LNG production hubs. Iranian strikes also targeted energy and other critical infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain.
Last month, two Adnoc tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz came under Iranian attack. Saudi and Qatari-owned vessels were also targeted.
The closure of the strait due to Iranian missile and drone attacks on commercial vessels and a US blockade of Iranian ports has disrupted energy flows and sent oil prices higher.
Strategic autonomy
Dr Gargash warned of a more complicated Gulf and a more challenging regional environment, emphasising that the UAE would continue to pursue strategic autonomy.
He said the past six months of the Iran war will reshape the region’s geostrategic landscape and alter its politics.
“What has emerged is a more complex and far more uncertain region than the one we knew before. We're still in a fluid and transitional phase. And more time will be needed to fully understand the consequences,” he added.
“But I have little doubt that we are moving towards a more complicated Gulf and a more challenging, wider region. In this new regional environment, strategic autonomy is not simply a slogan. It is a rational policy choice, grounded in what it delivers and practice for our security and our national interest.”
The UAE official said the Arab, regional and international responses to the war had been “ineffective and underwhelming, whether in preventing the war, protecting the flow of energy, and maritime trade or containing a crisis”.
“But it is equally important that we look honestly at the response of the Gulf states themselves,” he added. “Individually, we demonstrated strength and resolve in responding to Iran's attacks. Yet what worked so effectively at the national level did not translate with the same effectiveness to the regional level.”
He explained that was “not to suggest that there was no meaningful co-operation among Gulf and regional states”.
“There was, and it was important. But I do not believe that collectively we rose strategically to the magnitude of the threat in the way the Gulf did following the invasion of Kuwait, or when confronted by the turmoil of the Arab Spring,” Dr Gargash added.
