News Analysis
The pressure exerted by President Donald Trump's administration this week on Saudi Arabia to support military action against Iran demonstrates a renewed American insistence on a regional approach that has repeatedly proven to be a failure: transforming military superiority into a tool for re-engineering political balances. Instead of reading the profound shifts in the calculations of its Gulf allies, Washington treats the region as if it were still a malleable arena that can be managed by coercive deterrence and limited strikes.
The American approach stems from the assumption that Iran is experiencing a moment of structural weakness after the strikes it targeted in 2025, and that this moment represents a "strategic window" that should be exploited before Tehran rebuilds its capabilities. However, this thinking reflects a deficiency in understanding the nature of contemporary conflicts in the Middle East, where confrontations are not decided merely by destroying military targets, but by the ability of parties to absorb the shock and reproduce deterrence tools through less costly and more flexible means.
In this context, the visit of Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman to Washington seemed more like an explicit test of the limits of American influence over its allies. The offers made by the Trump administration, represented by long-term "security guarantees," clashed with an American record burdened by unfulfilled promises. The experience of the Aramco attack in 2019 is still strongly present in Saudi consciousness, not only as a security failure, but as a pivotal point that revealed the limits of American response when strategic priorities conflict with the cost of direct confrontation.
What Washington ignores, or deliberately overlooks, is that the Gulf states no longer view Iran from a zero-sum conflict perspective. After years of attrition, these states have reached a practical balance equation that allows for managing the disagreement with Tehran without sliding into an open confrontation. This balance, despite its fragility, has enabled Gulf capitals to reduce risks to energy security and control indirect engagement arenas, especially in Yemen and maritime passages.
In contrast, the United States continues to invest in the logic of military force as an alternative to political strategy. Military buildups, from aircraft carriers to air defense systems and air deployments in Jordan, may give Washington high operational capability, but they do not provide an answer to the question of what comes after the strike. Rather, this buildup deepens Gulf fears that they will find themselves at the heart of a conflict in whose decision they were not a partner, but they will be the first to pay its price.
Iran, for its part, is adept at exploiting this contradiction. Announcements of military maneuvers in the Strait of Hormuz, and the brandishing of the proxy card in the Red Sea, are nothing but psychological and political deterrence tools targeting allies before adversaries. The Iranian message is clear: any American strike will translate into long-term instability, not a "clean end" as American rhetoric suggests.
The most dangerous aspect of the current American approach is that it assumes the controllability of escalation, as if the region has not previously experienced the logic of "unintended slide." Recent history, from Iraq to Afghanistan, provides striking examples of how "limited" operations turned into strategic quagmires. Nevertheless, Washington continues to deal with the Gulf as a margin whose stability can be sacrificed for short-term deterrent gains.
Ultimately, the disagreement between Washington and Riyadh does not lie in the degree of hostility towards Iran, but in the definition of security itself. While American policy reduces security to militarily weakening the adversary, the Gulf states link it to economic and social stability and state sustainability. This contradiction makes American pressure not only unrealistic, but fraught with the danger of reproducing the crises it claims to seek to resolve.
American policy towards Iran reflects a chronic tendency to prefer military tools over political solutions, even when facts demonstrate the limitations of this option. The insistence on testing strength, instead of investing in managing balances, reveals a short-sighted strategic mentality that ignores the cost of regional repercussions. In this context, the Gulf rejection of war does not appear to be a defensive stance, but a more realistic reading of the complexities of the conflict.
The danger of the American approach lies in the assumption that allies will automatically align behind military decisions. However, the Gulf states have become more independent in their calculations, and less willing to bear the cost of choices they were not partners in formulating. This shift places Washington in a strategic dilemma: either review its policy, or risk the erosion of its influence in the world's most sensitive regions.
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The Illusion of the Decisive Blow: How US Policy Reproduces Gulf Crises in the Iran File