During the Cold War, countries of the Middle East, like most around the world, were divided into allies of the United States and allies of the Soviet Union. US allies sought Washington’s security protection and in general followed its lead except in policy toward Israel—on that topic, even the most staunchly pro-US countries diverged sharply from Washington. Countries aligned with the Soviet Union followed Moscow’s lead and were hostile to both the United States and Israel.

Today the alignment of the Middle East is quite different, but not in the way the United States envisaged after the disappearance of the Soviet Union. The number of Arab governments truly antagonistic to the United States dwindled to almost none once Saddam Hussein was removed from power in early 2003 and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi renounced the pursuit of nuclear weapons and turned to the West later that year. Even Syria and the Sudan would like to establish better ties to the United States. However, regimes that have long been friendly to the United States are increasingly reluctant to follow Washington’s lead on any issue. They are not enemies of the United States, but they are not faithful allies, either. Rather, they follow the policies they believe best protect their interests, regardless of what the United States wants.

This new independence from the United States is particularly evident among the countries of the Gulf in their policies toward Iran, Lebanon, and the Palestinian problem. It has stymied Washington’s attempts to build an anti-Iranian alliance in the Gulf and to isolate Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Nor is it just the Arab allies that are refusing to march to the beat of the United States. Israel too has ignored US opposition to its negotiations with Syria, turned to Turkey as a mediator, and pursued a truce with Hamas.

This diplomatic activity clearly goes against the Bush administration’s policies in the Middle East, which have been based on a sharp, black and white distinction between friends and foes and on the conviction that using diplomacy when dealing with foes amounts to appeasement. But the independent diplomacy of the Gulf countries does not necessarily go against US interests. It is not self-evident that the United States can protect its interests and security in the Middle East better by confronting Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah, rather than by cooperating with governments that are seeking to create a new balance of power and regional security system that does not depend on the United States.

The Threat of Iran

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the resulting fragility of Iraq—which had been the only country in the region with the power to contain Iran’s ambitions, and which still only functions because of the presence of over 140,000 US troops—have been gifts to Iran. The consequential growth in Iranian influence has been a matter of great concern not only to the United States, but also to all nearby countries, particularly those in the Gulf. Despite their palpable fear of Iran, however, these countries have strongly resisted entering into an alliance with the United States.

Beginning in the fall of 2006, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice undertook an effort to form an anti-Iranian coalition of “moderate”—or Sunni—regimes. After several months of desultory meetings beginning at the United Nations in September, Washington managed to bring together the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Qatar), Egypt, and Jordan—the GCC+2—at a meeting in Kuwait on January 17, 2007. The meeting produced a vague commitment to “regional security and peace” by all participants, but no specifics. Most importantly, the GCC+2 has never convened, let alone been mentioned again.

Efforts by the Gulf countries were directed instead at seeking ways to defuse the threat of an increasingly influential Iran, namely by pursuing their own initiatives. Saudi Arabia played a particularly important part in the contacts with Iran, but other GCC members, notably Qatar, also contributed greatly. Saudi diplomatic efforts to include Iran in the discussion of regional problems started after the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which left behind an unstable situation with good possibility of reignition. Repeated meetings between Saudi and Iranian envoys focusing on the situation in Lebanon eventually broadened to include other issues, culminating in early 2007 in an encounter between the heads of the respective national security councils: Ali Larijani for Iran and Prince Bandar bin Sultan for Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi-Iranian dialogue continued in March 2007 as Saudi King Abdullah and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met face-to-face in Saudi Arabia, apparently without a clear agenda or outcome. By the summer of 2007, as Iran continued to defy the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as the United States and Europe with its nuclear ambitions, the king was trying to act. He proposed that Iran and all Gulf countries that had announced their intention to develop nuclear energy sources work together to develop a common facility in a neutral country such as Switzerland to provide fuel for the entire region. Iran was bound to reject the suggestion, as the Saudis undoubtedly realized. Still, the proposal was significant as a declaration by Saudi Arabia that countries of the region should tackle issues affecting them all on their own terms, rather than on those of the United States.

In December 2007, a series of events further underlined the Gulf countries’ decision to deal with Iran as an integral part of the region, rather than to confront it or to try to isolate it diplomatically. First, at the initiative of the Qatari government, Ahmadinejad was invited to attend the 27th summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Doha on December 3 and 4. A few days later, during a meeting on Gulf security convened in Manama, Bahrain, by the London-based International Institute for Security Studies, Gulf countries again expressed the view that Iran was an integral part of the region and called to task US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, also present at the meeting, for condemning the Iranian nuclear program as a threat to regional security without even mentioning the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons. Finally, on December 18 Ahmadinejad took part in the pilgrimage to Mecca at the invitation of the Saudi king.