Arab States Fear Iran, Fear US Strikes Worse

DOHA: Arab states in the oil-rich Gulf are increasingly worried about the tension over neighbouring Iran’s nuclear programme despite their guarded public reaction to the crisis, experts say.

Although some said the prospect of US-led military action against Iran appeared unlikely in short-term, they warned there was a real risk the situation could be exploited by groups like al-Qaeda to attack oil infrastructure in the region.

Any disruption to oil deliveries would not only be catastrophic for the global energy market but would also hit countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hard given their high dependence on oil revenues, analysts warned.

Nearly 20 per cent of the world’s daily oil exports pass through the narrow Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the Gulf Arab states. “They should be very worried and I know a lot of them individually and I know that they are worried,” said Riad Kahwaji, director of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, referring to government and military officials.

The Iran crisis and the security of supplies will be among the most pressing issues to be tackled at the 10th International Energy Forum, which formally opened in Doha on Sunday.

The forum, which aims to foster dialogue, had kicked off a day earlier with a series of closed-door sessions between ministers from oil producing countries and the heads of some of the world’s largest oil companies.

The 11-member OPEC cartel, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, will also hold informal talks on Monday. Iran’s announcement this month that it has enriched a small amount of uranium, triggering talk of sanctions and even military action to stop its nuclear programme has prompted statements from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states about the need to resolve the standoff diplomatically or to make the Middle East including Israel a nuclear-free zone.

The West led by Washington accuses Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons programme but Tehran insists its intentions are peaceful. The UN Security Council has given Iran an April 28 to halt enrichment. Some members of the GCC, which groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have reached out to Iran to show they are not taking sides.

Last week Kuwait hosted Iran’s influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani while the current hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke on the telephone with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and King Hamad of Bahrain. Iran is eager to assure its neighbours it has no hostile intentions towards them but Gulf Arab states cannot commit to a non-aggression pact, at least openly, given their entrenched security and political ties with the United States, according to Jassem al-Saadun, head of Kuwait’s Al-Shall Economic Consultants.

“The United States holds most of the bargaining chips in the region and there are red lines which they cannot cross including security agreements with Iran at least under current circumstances,” Saadun said.

The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain while the US Central Command has its regional headquarters in Qatar. The US military maintains some 15,000 troops in Kuwait and joint air force exercises between GCC countries and the United States and and other Western allies take place regularly in the UAE.

Saadun said he believed the prospect of any military action against Iran was unlikely in short-term despite hints by some US officials that all options were on the table. But he said there were other dangers. “Some groups not even linked to Iran may take advantage of the tense situation to hit oil facilities,” he said.

On February 24, two suicide bombers blew themselves outside the world’s largest oil processing plant in Saudi Arabia. Two security guards were killed and authorities have killed or arrested at least 18 alleged al-Qaeda activists linked to in the botched attack.

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