Comparative Strategy

ISSN: 0149-5933 (Print) 1521-0448 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/ucst20

Structure, Agency, and Persian Gulf security:

Continuity amid change

Mehran Kamrava

To cite this article: Mehran Kamrava (2025) Structure, Agency, and Persian Gulf
security: Continuity amid change, Comparative Strategy, 44:1, 115-129, DOI:
10.1080/01495933.2024.2445493

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01495933.2024.2445493

© 2025 The Author(s). Published with

license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Published online: 14 Jan 2025.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 759

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ucst20
Comparative Strategy
2025, VOL. 44, NO. 1, 115–129
https://doi.org/10.1080/01495933.2024.2445493

Structure, Agency, and Persian Gulf security: Continuity

amid change
Mehran Kamrava
Georgetown University in Qatar, Doha, Qatar

ABSTRACT
The Persian Gulf’s security architecture is in a period of transition,
caused by the interplay of two sets of dynamics, one related to struc-
tural factors, and the other a product of agency. Structurally, compe-
tition among the region’s two middle powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia,
along with those of a small state that views itself as a middle power
and behaves as such, the UAE, is both transforming the Persian Gulf’s
security architecture and also keeping regional tensions high.
Moreover, elite political priorities within some of the most active
actors in the region are changing in favor of tension reductions.

The Persian Gulf ’s security architecture once again finds itself in a period of transition.
These changing features include, most notably, a reduction of tensions between Iran on
the one side and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on the other, a further
decline in the efficacy of the Gulf Cooperation Council as a multinational forum, the
prevalence of transactional relations based on more immediate considerations, and,
beginning in late 2023 the increasing insecurity of Red Sea shipping due to Houthi
attacks. At the same time, some of the important dimensions of Gulf security remain
the same, among the most notable of which are continued apprehensions about Iranian
intentions by Iran’s Arab neighbors, extensive American military presence in the region,
both on land and sea, and, as a result, continued psychological and military dependence
on the United States for protection, especially by smaller states such as Bahrain and
Qatar. More than any other factors, these changes and continuities are a result of domestic
political developments within each of the main actors in the Persian Gulf themselves,
among the most important of which are leadership transitions in Saudi Arabia and Qatar,
changes in presidential administrations in Iran and the United States, and growing
assertiveness in the UAE due to leadership perceptions of the country as a middle power.
Security arrangements in the Persian Gulf are fluid and are subject to changing
alliances and friendships. As a result, they are by nature unstable and fluid. Since late
2020 early 2021, in fact, a new security arrangement has emerged in which regional
actors that were competitors and adversaries – namely Iran vs. Saudi Arabia and the
UAE, and Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain vs. Qatar – have set aside their
differences and have significantly reduced previous tensions between them. This article

CONTACT Mehran Kamrava [email protected]

© 2025 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has
been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
116 M. KAMRAVA

analyzes the underlying causes of these ongoing changes in the region’s security arrange-
ments, paying particular attention to the changing security threat perceptions and
priorities of the main actors involved. Examining the evolving outlooks of key regional
players – notably those of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Iran – as well as those
of the main outside security provider, the United States, the article presents a deeper
insight into the underlying causes of changes and continuities in Persian Gulf security
dynamics. The article posits two specific points.
The article argues that changing security arrangement in the Persian Gulf are due
to two related sets of factors, one having to do with the agency of policymakers in
each of the states involved and the other a product of prevailing or emerging structures
in the region. Specifically, each for their own, different reasons, policy elites in the
Persian Gulf states have decided to reduce tensions with their neighbors. At the same
time, these regional states either already are or are aspiring to become global middle
powers. As such, they model their foreign policy behavior accordingly, namely an
empowered sense of regional confidence that facilitates heightened activism, power
projection, and a brandishing of material or military might. Policymakers, then, have
an especially challenging role of proactively reducing tensions while ensuring that their
middle power behavior does not undermine their neighborly relations.
To illustrate the point, the article begins with an examination of middle power
behavior on the one hand and its consequences on decision-making, and more spe-
cifically on strategic culture, on the other. In the Persian Gulf region, one of the key
security providers is an outside actor, the United States. The article therefore examines
security concerns and threat perceptions as seen not only through the eyes Riyadh,
Abu Dhabi, Doha, and Tehran, but those of Washington as well. The American approach
to the Persian Gulf is informed by the broader contours of US foreign policy toward
the Middle East in general and by the emergent Biden Doctrine in particular. For
their part, the main regional actors are now more united in the pursuit of a common
goal, that of tension reduction, which arises out of domestic economic considerations
and promises of development to their populations.
In a number of important respects, the article concludes, Persian Gulf security is
at the mercy of several independent variables, including the inherent unpredictability
of autocracies, which remain the norm across the Persian Gulf, and impending lead-
ership transitions in Iran and in the United States. At the same time as these changes
are likely to unfold, a number of other variables in regional security are likely to
remain constant, some of the most notable of which are continued mistrust and even
tensions among regional actors, robust and expansive US military presence, and the
precarity of Yemen and its unpredictable politics.

Structure and agency

At least three states in the Persian Gulf region – the United Arab Emirates, Saudi
Arabia, and Iran – view themselves as middle powers and behave accordingly. Regional
middle power behavior is the result of interaction between structure, foreign policy
role, and orientation.1 Middle powers are often assumed to be “helpful fixers,” build
alliances, and be good international citizens.2 In addition to material capabilities, middle
powers have foreign policies that focus on multilateralism, mediation, coalition building,
 Comparative Strategy 117

and niche diplomacy.3 Contrary to these tradition assumptions, however, middle powers
do not always focus on normative agendas such as multilateralism, negotiations, and
peacebuilding.4 The “stabilizer” and “system supporting” roles ascribed to traditional
middle powers such as Australia and Canada do not necessarily hold for certain
emerging middle powers, especially those located in the Global South.5 Turkey’s
President Erdogan, for example, has pursued an unusually activist foreign policy, often
employing coercive diplomacy and militaristic methods, in hope of reaping “populist
dividends” domestically.6 Some middle powers justify their confrontational policies on
grounds of national interests, security concerns, and independence.7
Material capabilities enable middle powers to pursue an activist foreign policy.8 On
top of economic wealth, military prowess, and normative powers, a state must also
have “the will and interest to pursue middle power behavior.”9 Dislocations, or moments
of uncertainty and transition in the international system, such as the US’s supposed
tilt toward Asia and away from the Persian Gulf, provide moments of activism for
middle powers.10 Observers have proposed a number of attributes to middle power
behavior: a willingness to transform normative means into real power; the capacity to
devise a strategy to achieve goals; power projection within the region and influencing
regional balance of power; possession of ideological and cultural power to influence
the normative order of the region; the ability to construct and enter into alliances
with state and nonstate actors; and the ability to enable or disrupt international strat-
egies in the region.11 In terms of motivations for middle power status, domestic and
external factors cannot be completely separated from one another. These domestic
factors include regime survival; regime identity; ideology and world vision; aspirations
and role performance; and social composition, geopolitical location, and economic
resources.12
The foreign policies of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, all three of which view
themselves as middle powers, have often brought them into competition and conflict
with one another. The 2011 Arab uprisings heightened tensions among these actors
as a proliferation of weakened central governments in the Middle East provided
opportunities for them, plus Qatar, to try and expand their influence across the region.
The polarizing presidency of Donald Trump in the United States, from 2017 to 2021,
had consequences for the Persian Gulf as well. With initial American approval, Saudi
Arabia and the UAE imposed a blockade on Qatar and sought to effect regime change
in Doha. As an outside balancer and security provider, meanwhile, the US sought to
support its regional allies and to counter what it viewed (and still views) as malevolent
Iranian behavior. Trump’s approach toward Qatar steadily changed, and the rift within
the Gulf Cooperation Council came to end with Trump’s departure from office in
January 2021. But the US policy toward Iran stayed the same from one administration
to the next.

The Biden White House and the Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf has long played a central role in American foreign policy calculations,
and the region’s geostrategic significance has preoccupied US relations toward the
larger Middle East. Historically, America’s Middle East policy comprises four key
components: containing regional threats to US interests broadly defined; free navigation
118 M. KAMRAVA

of goods and resources – in this case oil and gas – in ways that do not harm the
interests of the US and its allies; guaranteeing the safety and security of the State of
Israel; and, since the end of the Cold War and especially after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait,
a proliferation of US military bases and its “footprint” across the region.13 These
mutually reinforcing policy objectives, combined with chronic tensions and the region’s
intractable security dilemmas, have inextricably linked American global interests and
posture to the Middle East in general and the Persian Gulf in particular.14
More specifically, after Britain’s withdrawal from the Persian Gulf in 1971, the United
States opted for an “informal empire” in the region premised on military bases and
reciprocity – “U.S. protection in exchange for abundant and affordable Gulf oil.”15 This
informal empire rests of the premise of an “emirates strategy” in which Qatar, Bahrain,
Kuwait, and to a lesser extent the UAE happily house US military bases and troops
out of balance of threat calculations in return for US protection from threats from
Iran and other regional states and nonstate actors.16
It is within this larger context that the Biden administration has approached the
Persian Gulf. Not long after assuming office, President Biden began articulating what
observers saw as the making of a “the Biden Doctrine.”17 Presidential foreign policy
doctrines in the US usually emerge over the course of several years, when announce-
ments and speeches concerning unfolding events over time begin to present the outlines
of the president’s foreign policy priorities and outlook. In Biden’s case, however, largely
because of his long history of involvement in foreign policy issues first as a long-time
senator and then a vice president for eight years, and in order to quickly distinguish
his tenure from the Trump presidency before global audiences, a Biden Doctrine was
relatively quick to form.18
Although articulated in terms more diplomatic than the often brash foreign policy
enunciations of the Trump presidency, the Biden Doctrine has many of the same
elements of Trump’s foreign policy while also featuring a healthy dose of “pragmatic
realism.”19 The broad outlines of the doctrine, which have remained generally consistent
throughout the president’s term, include, first and foremost, a firm personal belief by
Biden that the United State has a special role to play in providing leadership to the
global liberal order, as seen through the eyes of Washington. This is most evident in
the American President’s willingness to use military force when necessary, in order to
ensure the maintenance of this order, but only in a comparatively restrained manner.
Moreover, China is seen as an existential competitor to America’s global technological
advantage, while Russia, as its invasion of Ukraine amply demonstrated, is a disrupter
to the international order. North Korea is assumed to be a nuclear proliferator, and
there is a serious risk that Iran may become one as well. All four of these countries
– China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran – present evolving cyberthreats to the United
States and its allies. Equally threatening is the ever-present danger of terrorism, par-
ticularly in state with weak and fragile central authority such as Yemen and Afghanistan.
Given the general parameters of American foreign policy in relation to the Middle
East, and the more specific objectives of the Biden Doctrine, the Persian Gulf has
been, and will continue to be, subject to sustained American attention for the fore-
seeable future. To further enhance Israel’s security and its international position, the
US continues to press for Israeli-Saudi normalization and an expansion of the scope
of the Abraham Accords. Moreover, despite expressed reluctance by countries such as
 Comparative Strategy 119

Iraq and even friendly states like the UAE, the US is pressing ahead with its military
presence and its frequent drone and other armed operations in the region.20 In terms
of Tehran’s nuclear program, largely as a result of Congressional opposition, Washington
has done little to reverse President Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 agreement with
Iran, in effect freezing any contacts between the two sides. Path dependence in foreign
policy-making and in international dynamics, combined with domestic electoral politics,
have locked American politics into a hostile path with Iran.21 Given Biden’s policy
preferences on the one side, and the ascendance of securocrats in Tehran on the other,
US-Iranian tensions are unlikely to recede anytime in the near future. Neither is it
likely that central state authority will be soon strengthened in countries wracked by
civil war, of which Yemen and Syria are the most notable examples, therefore resulting
in the continued existence of various nonstate actors, militias and proxies, and terrorist
organizations.

Changing Saudi priorities

Although Saudi Arabia has long bandwagoned with the United States in its overall
foreign policy orientation, in recent years it has begun to assert greater strategic
autonomy vis-à-vis the US and has become more assertive in pursuing those priorities
that differ from Washington’s objective. The March 2023 restoration of diplomatic
relations with Iran is a case in point. This greater assertiveness is in large measure a
product of the Kingdom’s leadership transition in 2015 and the consolidation of power
by the new king’s son, Mohammed Bin Salman, beginning in 2017. Mohammed Bin
Salman has since emerged as Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler.
In his initial years in power, the young prince embarked on a number of interna-
tional misadventures that eroded much of the international credibility he was trying
to build up. These included, most notably, joining collective efforts by the UAE and
Bahrain to isolate and blockade Qatar in June 2017, and the killing of the dissident
journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018. Earlier, in March 2015, Saudi Arabia had
led a coalition of countries in invading Yemen, confident that it could eject Houthi
rebels from power relatively quickly and restore Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi to the office
of the presidency. At the same time, Bin Salman deployed public diplomacy in order
to enlarge regional influence, obfuscate hard power strategies, and to retain and expand
the support of extra-regional actors.22 One of the goals of Saudi public diplomacy was
“camouflaging imperial strategies,” especially insofar as the war in Yemen and the
diplomatic row with Qatar were concerned.23 Before long, however, the Yemen war
turned into a quagmire for Saudi Arabia, eventually forcing the kingdom to sign a
ceasefire agreement with the Houthis in December 2023.
The ceasefire agreement with the Houthis and the restoration of diplomatic ties with
Iran, and the earlier termination of hostilities with Qatar in January 2021, all signal shifts
in the Saudi leadership’s domestic and international priorities. A more mature, more realistic
Mohammed Bin Salman appears to have come to the realization that initiatives such as
blockading Qatar, or rebuffing Iranian overtures for better ties, or continued military
operations in Yemen, are only sunk costs that do not bring the kingdom any tangible
benefits. Instead, he has turned his attention to his ambitious development plans for the
country and efforts to diversify its economy and reduce its reliance on oil.24 The
120 M. KAMRAVA

centerpiece of the prince’s economic ambitions is Saudi Vision 2030, which outlines a series
of groundbreaking steps the Saudi state will take in order to foster “a vibrant society that
serves as the foundation for a thriving economy and an ambitious nation.”25
For the foreseeable future, therefore, it appears that Saudi adventurism is on hold,
perhaps for good. Projecting soft power has instead become one of Saudi Arabia’s
main foreign policy objectives.26 Nevertheless, just as Saddam Hussein was at one point
seen in Western capitals as an enlightened leader standing firm against the export of
the Iranian revolution, Mohammed Bin Salman’s one-man rule can also make radical
policy changes that dramatically alter the shape and direction of the kingdom’s domestic
and international politics. This sudden shift is especially a possibility now that the
Saudi “deep state” has been dismantled. This deep state was composed of influential
princes and royal family members in charge of various state institutions, providing a
form of a collective mechanism for consensus-based decision-making. But many of its
members were rounded up and incarcerated at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton hotel in
November 2017 in what came to be called the Night of the Long Knives. Even those
who were spared being held soon found themselves sidelined and politically margin-
alized.27 Today’s Saudi politics revolves around one man, and as such the system
remains inherently dependent on and susceptible to his whims and desires.
Also on hold, at least for now, are prospects for normalization of relations between
Saudi Arabia and Israel. It is true that “even at a time of conflict between Israel and
Hamas, Riyadh and Jerusalem may very well continue to tiptoe toward each other.”28
Nevertheless, the extent of the devastation in Gaza and the scale of Israel’s onslaught
on Palestinians has significantly increased the domestic political costs of establishing
relations with Israel under current circumstance. Mohammed Bin Salman may enjoy
tremendous popularity among the Saudi youth who appreciate his social reforms. But
allowing women to drive and sponsoring wrestling matches is not the same as estab-
lishing relations with a country generally seen in the Muslim world as being guilty of
committing genocide against Palestinians. According to a December 2023 poll in Saudi
Arabia, the Israel-Hamas war has significantly suppressed support for allowing business
contacts with Israelis. While still higher than the levels prior to the Abraham Accords,
after years of incremental increases from 37% from 2020 to 43% in November 2022,
agreement with such a statement shrank to 17% after the war started.29 Not surpris-
ingly, in a widely circulated announcement in February 2024, the Saudi foreign ministry
ruled out any prospects of establishing ties with Israel unless “the brotherly Palestinian
people obtain their legitimate rights” and a two-state solution is realized.30
In sum, with its attention focused on the developmental promises of Saudi Vision
2030, and with ambitions of turning the kingdom into one of the world’s most pow-
erful economies as soon as possible, the Saudi state prefers a minimalization of regional
tensions as much as possible. In fact, Saudi officials have made the link between Vision
2030 and regional peace clear: “Saudi Vision 2030 won’t work without regional stability
and security.”31 The Kingdom has therefore pulled back from most of its earlier efforts
to reshape the regional order to its liking, and it has also put on the brakes insofar
as normalization with Israel is concerned. Nevertheless, with overwhelming political
power concentrated in the hands of a single individual, and with regime security as
the overriding priority of all regional leaders, the possibility of erratic behavior, à la
Saddam Hussein, remains ever present.
 Comparative Strategy 121

The UAE as a Middle power

While reduced regional tensions are also the UAE’s preferred option, Abu Dhabi’s
priorities are somewhat different from those of Riyadh when it comes to the immediate
Gulf region and beyond.32 The outbreak of the Arab Spring uprisings marked a stra-
tegic shift in the UAE’s foreign policy as the Emirate became much more assertive,
even militaristic, in pursuing its objectives in the region and beyond. This was par-
ticularly evident in the UAE’s approach toward Iran.33 Up until 2011, Abu Dhabi used
trade to maintain cordial relations with Tehran and engaged in soft balancing vis-à-vis
the Islamic Republic by developing relations with the major powers to undermine
what it saw as Iran’s hegemonic ambitions. In the years following the Arab Uprisings,
however, the UAE took a much more confrontational stance toward Iran. It strength-
ened its strategic alliances with the United States and Saudi Arabia, began to pursue
regional policies that stood in direct contrast to Iranian objectives and preferences,
and began upgrading its military and became more willing to project force abroad.34
Several factors account for the UAE’s changing posture toward Iran in specific and in
its broader foreign policy outlook in general. Much of the change can be attributed to the
preferences of the Crown Prince at the time, Muhammad Bin Zayed. Although Bin Zayed
had been effectively running the country since the early 2000s, by the time of the outbreak
of the Arab Uprisings he felt confident in his position to press ahead with his preference
for a more muscular foreign policy. The financial crisis of 2008 had also reigned in Dubai’s
penchant for a somewhat independent foreign policy, thereby resulting in a more central-
ized policy outlook at the federal level and giving more cohesion to the Emirate’s foreign
policy.35 Space for the UAE was further opened in 2013-2014, when a leadership transition
in Qatar, one of the UAE’s traditional competitors, resulted in a more inward focus in
Doha and a steady retrenchment of Qatar’s regional activism.36
The manifestations of the UAE’s highly assertive foreign policy were multi-faceted.
They included, most notably, strategic alliances with the US and with Saudi Arabia,
the latter crystalized in the join invasion of Yemen in 2015; spearheading the blockade
of Qatar in 2017 along with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain; heightened tensions with Iran;
and strategic competition with Turkey in war-torn Libya and elsewhere.37 A concerted
effort was also made to develop an indigenous military industrial complex, and to
modernize and strengthen the capacities of the Emirati armed forces.38 The Emirate
also utilized a number of surrogates in Yemen, Libya, and Sudan “to project influence
and power with few normative strings attached.”39
By 2019, several dominant trends were beginning to emerge in the UAE’s foreign
policy pursuits. The first, as noted above, was continued power projection, mostly
through proxies and surrogates. This was reinforced by the UAE leaders’ conception
of their country not as a “small state,” which by all objective definitions it is, but
rather as a middle power.40 Adham Saouli considers the UEA to be at best an “aspir-
ing” middle power, in the same vein, he claims, that Iran and Qatar also are.41 This
aspiration was triggered by the regional reconfiguration of power in the post-2011
Middle East, by the UAE’s status race with both Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and by the
chronic inefficacy of the GCC.42
Aspiring to be a middle power, and perceiving of itself as one, the UAE now seeks
to exercise a certain level of strategic autonomy vis-à-vis its traditional security
122 M. KAMRAVA

provider, namely the United States. This is most starkly evident in the UAE’s relations
with Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine it refused to condemn despite prodding by
the US. Instead, in an open display of defiance of Washington, in December 2023
Abu Dhabi joined Riyadh in hosting President Putin in a highly publicized state visit.43
A few months earlier, in March 2022, the Saudi and Emirati leaders had actually
refused to take calls from President Biden regarding the Ukraine crisis.44 At the same
time, as another sign of its strategic autonomy, the UAE has offered itself as a mediator
in Russian-Ukrainian prisoner swaps and has successfully brokered several such
exchanges since the start of the war.
UAE foreign policy is premised on the country being a hub of regional power and
is driven by transactional, pragmatic diplomacy and economic statecraft supported by
close military relationship with the US.45 The UAE uses aid and military capabilities
to build alliances, project power, and consolidate its middle power status.46 In 2017,
in fact, the UAE established a “Soft Power Council” tasked with devising a “Soft Power
Strategy” to promote a “modern and tolerant” global image of the country. The Council
deployed humanitarian aid as one of the means of achieving its goals.47
The UAE’s aspirations to middle power status are facilitated by a number of “system
level triggers.” They include, most notably, the 2011 Arab uprisings; perceived threats
from Iran; perceived ideological threats from Islamists inside the UAE and also abroad;
status race, especially vis-à-vis Qatar; and a hollow GCC.48 Domestic level triggers are:
the narrative of the UAE as a model of modernity, tolerance, and happiness; rising
economic capability; and the vision of the country’s new leader, Mohanmed Bin Zayed,
following his ascent to rulership in 2022.49 Enhanced domestic legitimacy is also one
of the drivers motivating Emirati leadership to achieve greater international recognition
and influence by becoming a middle power.50
The UAE’s power projection and strategic autonomy were complemented by a further
trend, this one focused on tension reduction. In July 2019, UAE officials openly discussed
moving from “a military-first strategy to a peace-first strategy.”51 The strategy precipitated
first a drawdown of Emirati forces from Yemen in 2019 and eventually led to a complete
phased withdrawal by early 2020. Although parts of Yemen continue to be controlled
by the UAE’s proxy forces to this day, the Emirate is no longer seen as an occupying
force.52 The same strategy, which was primarily motivated by the Emirate’s Vision 2021
and by a desire to increase the country’s soft power, facilitated the signing of the Abraham
Accords and normalization with Israel in September 2020.53 Tension reduction measures
with Iran followed, noted earlier, and the blockade of Qatar was lifted and relations
with Doha restored through the signing of the Al-Ula agreement in January 2021.
Somewhat similar to Saudi Arabia, for reasons having to do mainly with domestic
political considerations, the UAE’s foreign policy has come to assume the three main
features of power projection, assumption of middle power status and strategic auton-
omy, and tension reduction. Muhammad Bin Zayed’s power consolidation, reinforced
by Abu Dhabi’s greater policy control within the UAE after 2008-2009, and the increased
legitimacy that supposedly comes with middle power status and the projection of hard
and soft power, all combined to give Emirati foreign policy its current shape. The
evolving structures of the international and regional orders, of course, were not unim-
portant. These domestic concerns and developments, however, appear to have been
key to shaping the current nature of the UAE’s foreign policy.
 Comparative Strategy 123

Qatar’s search for security

Like the UAE, Qatar’s foreign policy activism is driven by a need for protection from
bigger and more powerful regional actors.54 However, whereas the UAE tries to com-
pensate for its small geographic and demographic size by boosting its military capa-
bilities and enhancing the sustainability of its economic prosperity to become a middle
power, Qatar is keenly aware of its status as a small state at both the regional and
international levels. As such, security, and in fact survival, have underlined the various
dimensions of its foreign policy agendas, of which branding, hedging, and mediation
have been the most prominent.55 On the plus side, by placing one big bet one way
– i.e. security reliance on the US – and a number of smaller bets the other way –
consistently warm diplomatic relations with Iran, for example – hedging has enabled
Qatar to have as many friends and as few adversaries as possible while also guaran-
teeing its security through the protective American umbrella. This has also enabled
Qatar to place itself as a strategic conduit of information and negotiations between
actors that would otherwise not be able to communicate: Iran and the United State,
for example, or the US, Hamas, and Israel, to name only two of the more notable
instances of Qatari mediation. Qatar’s hedging and mediation strategies have gone
hand in hand, and being known as a peacemaker in an otherwise troubled region also
reinforces Qatar’s branding efforts.
But hedging and mediation have also entailed reputational risks for Qatar. Competitors
like the UAE and other distant observers, such as parliamentarians in the EU and the
US, have often seized on Qatar’s diplomatic moves to accuse it of sponsoring terror-
ism.56 For the time being, Qatari policymakers appear to have decided that the benefits
of their foreign policy strategy outweigh the risks. Significantly, the substance of Qatari
foreign policy has remained fairly consistent before and after the country’s leadership
transition in 2013, when the ruling emir, Hamad Bin Khalifa, retired and handed
power over to his son Tamim. What has differed ever since is the style with which
Qatari foreign policy is carried out. Tamim is less keen on grabbing international
headlines and instead pays close attention to domestic political and cultural sensibil-
ities.57 In the decade since his rule started, he has cultivated the image of a less frantic,
more steady ruler. He has implemented economic and social reforms at home – as in
the area of labor reforms or the consumption of alcohol, for example – while allaying
the concerns of the more conservative quarters of Qatari society. Unlike in the UAE,
where fear remains a compelling motivator for political compliance, the overall posture
of the Qatari state is one of benign authoritarianism. This reinforces, and is in turn
reinforced by, the legitimacy that the state derives from its foreign policy pursuits.
Another notable difference between Qatari and Emirati foreign policies, and
between Qatar and Saudi Arabia for that matter, is Qatar’s continued, overt reliance
on the United States for its security protection. While Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s
exercise of strategic autonomy has not necessarily meant reduced reliance on
American armaments, for Qatar security cooperation with the US has an actual
existential component. In 2017, shortly after their blockade of the small country
started, Saudi Arabia and the UAE planned on invading Qatar, taking over its oil
and gas installations, and installing their own pick as the country’s emir. It was
only due to the staunch opposition of the US Secretaries of State and Defense, Rex
124 M. KAMRAVA

Tillerson and James Mattis respectively, that the invasion did not materialize.58 Qatar’s
hosting of the Al Udeid Air Base, which can house up to 10,000 US military per-
sonnel, is more than a matter of maintaining close relations with the US. It is a
guarantor of political and territorial security in an unstable and unpredictable regional
environment.
Qatar’s foreign policy, then, has remained fairly consistent since the country’s lead-
ership transition in 2013. Broadly, Qatar has pulled back on many of its overseas
involvements under Sheikh Tamim, most notably in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars,
while it has made mediation a formal component of its foreign policy. It continues to
see hedging as a preferred foreign policy option, viewing its benefit in branding and
in reducing the number of potential adversaries as greater than the reputational risks
that come with it. At the same time, it remains firmly supportive of the American
military presence in the region, seeing it as a source of regime and national security.

The view from Tehran

At approximately the same time as Saudi Arabia and the UAE were recalibrating their
foreign policies to become less confrontational with Iran, in 2021, Iranians elected a
new president in elections that were widely considered to have been “engineered” to
produce a particular result.59 Among other things, Iran’s 2021 presidential elections
had two important consequences. First, the wholly uncompetitive nature of the elections
represented the near-complete demise of Iran’s hybrid authoritarianism and its tilt
toward a fully authoritarian system. A second, related development was the factional
uniformity that resulted from the conservative Raisi’s election, bringing the presidency
in line with the conservative parliament, called the Majles, as well as with Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei, and with the security-oriented Revolutionary Guards. This fac-
tional uniformity, unprecedented since the 1980s, on the one hand facilitated the
formulation and implementation of policies that, unlike in the past, would not be
undermined by opponents within the system. On the other hand, the uniformity did
not go unnoticed by regional capitals, which now saw Iran as speaking with one voice.
Iranian policies were now viewed as representing systematic objectives rather than as
political maneuvers meant to enhance domestic political positions.
Not long after assuming office, the Raisi administration enunciated two, comple-
mentary foreign policy priorities, namely the “good neighbor” and the “look East”
policies, both of which had actually been practiced by previous administrations for
some time.60 Spurred by its perceived lack of electoral legitimacy and by domestic
protests, the Raisi administration has tried hard to score foreign policy successes that
might somehow compensate for its sparse popularity. Such efforts have not been in
vain. In July 2023, Iran became a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
and then joined the BRICS as of January 2024. Membership in these organization is
meant to further deepen economic, diplomatic, and military ties with India, China,
and Russia.
In relations to its neighbors, improved ties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE count
among Raisi’s biggest successes so far. As already shown, each of Iran’s two Arab
neighbors have had their own reasons for improving ties with the Islamic Republic.
As far back as 2019, former President Rouhani proposed the Hormuz Peace Endeavor,
 Comparative Strategy 125

or HOPE, as a means of reconciliation between Iran and its Arab neighbors to the
south. But seeing no strategic gains in rapprochement with Iran at the time, neither
the Saudis nor the Emiratis expressed any interest in the Iranian plan.61 By the time
Raisi’s tenure had started, however, policy priorities in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi had
changed, and Iranian overtures found receptive ears in both capitals.
Tehran’s increased attention to the East, and its efforts at regional tension reduction,
are taking place within a context of the country seeing itself as continuously surrounded
by the American military. Literally every single neighbor of the Islamic Republic houses
one or more major US military base or hosts a significant American military presence.
The United States has formal Status of Forces Agreements, through which it bases
troops and military equipment abroad, or other less formal security cooperation
arrangements, with Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey,
Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Pakistan. Additionally, US warships, including aircraft
carrier groups, maintain a regular presence in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.
Much of Tehran’s behavior regionally and beyond is a product of its perception of
being militarily encircled by the United States. This includes relations with proxy
groups and nonstate actors that also oppose the American presence in the region;
looking for friends and allies among the BRICS and other non-Western states; seeking
to enhance Iran’s strategic depth in Iraq and Syria and developing deterrence capabil-
ities against the US and Israel; and trying to reduce tensions with various Arab
neighbors in order to render as unnecessary their military reliance on the US.62
Iran views itself as a fundamentally defensive state whose strategic objectives are shaped
by national interests and ideology and by perceptions of threats to first internal and then
external security.63 As the same time, retaliation is central to Iranian strategic culture.64
This was made amply evident by Iran’s retaliatory attacks on ISIS bases in 2017 and 2018
following the group’s terrorist activities in Iran, the January 2020 attack on US bases in
Iraq following the killing of General Qasim Soleimani, and the April 2024 attack on Israel
following Israel’s attack on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus.65
For Iran, a peaceful Persian Gulf is possible only when the United States decides
to leave the region. A win-win scenario involving Iran and the US is not beyond the
pale, and Iranian policymakers believe they have made good-faith efforts at positive
overtures toward the United States for a number of years.66 However, Tehran feels
continually betrayed by the United States, the most obvious example of which occurred
in 2018, when the United States unilaterally withdrew from the painstakingly-crafted
nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the JCPOA,
signed between Iran and the world powers in 2015. Any hopes that Iran may have
had that the Biden Administration would return to the JCPOA were abandoned when
Biden continued many of the same policies as Trump.67 Seen from Tehran, the Biden
Doctrine features few differences from the foreign policy lines of the Trump
Administration. For the foreseeable future, therefore, Iran and the United States are
likely to be deadlocked in an interminable conflict.

Conclusion
As has often been the case in its history, the Persian Gulf once again finds itself in
a paradoxical predicament. On the one hand, for the first time in years, some of the
126 M. KAMRAVA

main regional actors have decided to set aside their differences and to proactively
work on measures intended to reduce tensions. This has been largely a product of
domestic political developments and concerns within each of the states involved, which
has at least resulted in cordial diplomacy between previous adversaries. They may not
necessarily trust each other, but at least they are not openly hostile or proactively
trying to undermine one another. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have resolved the
differences that nearly caused Qatar’s invasion by the other two in 2017, and the UAE
and Saudi Arabia once again have established diplomatic ties with an Islamic Republic
that is now formally espousing a good neighborly policy.
For each of the states involved, domestic considerations have been one of the pri-
mary causes of these foreign policy orientations. Since Sheikh Tamim’s rule began in
2013, Qatar has steadily pulled back from its support for surrogates in Libya and Syria
and now focuses instead more on international mediation and branding. In Saudi
Arabia, a young crown prince initially engaged in several misadventures abroad upon
ascending to power in 2015 has now turned most of his attention inward and to the
delivery of a highly ambitious developmental agenda. Mohammed Bin Salman is cur-
rently focused on propelling the kingdom into one the world’s most developed countries
at breakneck speed. Not to fall behind, the UAE has similar ambitions, but it is also
keen to project itself as a global middle power with its own interests, no longer willing
to obediently follow the wishes of its main security provider, the United States. For
its part, Iran’s steady turn into a full-blown authoritarian state has fostered a measure
of policy uniformity and therefore notable successes in both the look East and good
neighborly policies.
The paradox lies in the fact that although regional tensions have been steadily reduced,
the Persian Gulf region continues to be prone to conflict. The US military presence,
both in the Gulf itself and on lands surrounding it, remains pervasive and shows no
signs of reduction. At the same time, no other outside power – not even China – is
willing or able to challenge the US as the conflict prone region’s security guarantor.

Notes
1. May Darwich, “Middle Power Theory and the Regional Level,” in Unfulfilled Aspirations:
Middle Power Politics in the Middle East, edited by Adham Saouli (London: Hurst, 2020), 48.
2. Mustafa Kutlay and Ziya Öniş, “Understanding Oscillations in Turkish Foreign Policy:
Pathways to Unusual Middle Power Activism,” Third World Quarterly 42, no. 12 (2021):
3052.
3. Umut Aydin, “Emerging Middle Powers and the Liberal International Order,” International
Affairs 97, no. 5 (2021): 1379.
4. Adham Saouli, “Introduction: Middle Powers in the Middle East,” in Unfulfilled Aspirations:
Middle Power Politics in the Middle East, edited by Adham Saouli (London: Hurst, 2020), 4.
5. Kutlay and Öniş, “Understanding Oscillations in Turkish Foreign Policy,” 3053.
6. Ibid., 3051.
7. Ibid., 3052.
8. Aydin, “Emerging Middle Powers and the Liberal International Order,” 1380.
9. Adham Saouli, “Middling or Meddling: Origins and Constraints of External Influences in
the Middle East,” in Unfulfilled Aspirations: Middle Power Politics in the Middle East, edited
by Adham Saouli (London: Hurst, 2020), 12.
10. Aydin, “Emerging Middle Powers and the Liberal International Order,” 1380.
 Comparative Strategy 127

11. Saouli, “Middling or Meddling,” 15.

12. Ibid., 17.
13. Catherine Lutz, “US Foreign Military Bases: The Edge and Essence of Empire” in Rethinking
America: The Imperial Homeland in the 21st Century, edited by Jeff Maskovsky and Ida
Susser (London: Routledge, 2015): 15–30.
14. On the broader implication of security dilemmas in the Persian Gulf see, Fred Lawson,
“Security Dilemmas in the Contemporary Persian Gulf,” in International Politics of the
Persian Gulf, edited by Mehran Kamrava (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011),
50–71.
15. Marc J. O’Reilly and Wesley B. Renfro, “Evolving Empire: America’s ‘Emirates’ Strategy in
the Persian Gulf,” International Studies Perspective 8 (2007): 138.
16. Ibid., 176.
17. Hal Brands, “The Emerging Biden Doctrine: Democracy, Autocracy, and the Defining Clash
of Our Time,” Foreign Affairs 29 (2021), https://bit.ly/3wxqBNG.
18. James Politi, “The Biden Doctrine: The US Hunts for a New Place in the World,” Financial
Times, (September 3, 2021), https://bit.ly/48vTPu0.
19. Anne-Marie Slaughter, “It’s Time to Get Honest About the Biden Doctrine,” The New York
Times, (November 14, 2021), https://bit.ly/48mRqBy.
20. Lara Seligman, Alexander Ward, and Nahal Toosi, “UAE restricts US ability to launch re-
taliatory airstrikes against Iran proxies,” Politico, (February 14, 2024), https://bit.ly/3I6ZDPS.
21. Louise Fawcett and Andrew Payne, “Stuck on a Hostile Path: US Policy Towards Iran Since
the Revolution,” Contemporary Politics 29, no. 1, (2023): 1.
22. Jens Heibach, “Public Diplomacy and Regional Leadership Struggles: The Case of Saudi
Arabia,” International Politics 61, (2021): 85.
23. Ibid., 97.
24. Anna Jacobs, “Understanding Saudi Arabia’s Recalibrated Foreign Policy,” International
Crisis Group, (September 14, 2023), https://bit.ly/3uGUKK1.
25. The text of the document can be accessed through https://bit.ly/3I7zGzE.
26. Hazal Muslu El Berni, “The Power Paradigm of the King Salman Period: Building a Saudi
Soft Power?” Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 17, no. 2, (2023): 190–
200.
27. Stig Stenslie, “The End of Elite Unity and the Stability of Saudi Arabia,” The Washington
Quarterly 41, no. 1 (2018): 60. https://doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2018.1445360.
28. Harley Lippman, “The Abraham Accords Are Alive,” The National Interest, (February 10,
2024), https://bit.ly/3T85dI4.
29. Catherine Cleveland and David Pollock, “New Poll Sheds Light on Saudi Views of
Israel-Hamas War,” Fikra Forum, (December 21, 2023), https://bit.ly/42RfkEn.
30. The statement went on to say that “there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless
an independent Palestinian state is recognized on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as
its capital, and that Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops and all Israeli occupation
forces withdraw from the Gaza Strip.” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, February 7, 2024.
31. Jacobs, “Understanding Saudi Arabia’s Recalibrated Foreign Policy.”
32. Significantly, one key point of difference between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which ac-
counts for these divergent priorities, revolves around Abu Dhabi’s greater focus on the
perceived threat from Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood due to latter’s more significant
presence at one time in all levels of Emirati society. Peter Salisbury, “Risk Perception and
Appetite in UAE Foreign and National Security Policy,” Chatham House, (July 1, 2020),
https://bit.ly/48rQuvJ.
33. Cinzia Bianco. “The GCC Monarchies: Perceptions of the Iranian Threat amid Shifting
Geopolitics,” The International Spectator 55, no. 2 (2020): 92–107.
34. Ayman El-Dessouki and Ola Rafik Mansour, “Small States and Strategic Hedging: The
United Arab Emirates’ Policy towards Iran,” Review of Economics and Political Science 8, no.
5 (2023): 397–398, 400.
128 M. KAMRAVA

35. Ibid., 403.

36. Kristina Coates Ulrichsen, Qatar and the Arab Spring, (London: Hurst, 2014): 178–181.
37. Ellias Aghili Dehnavi and Ali Adami, “UAE foreign policy patterns after 2018 until now
based on discourse analysis,” International Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Research
and Studies 3, no. 1 (2023): 834.
38. Jean-Loup Samaan, “Indigenous Military Reforms from the Outside: The Paradox of the
UAE Armed Forces Modernisation,” Defence Studies 24, no. 1 (2024): 65, https://doi.org/10
.1080/14702436.2023.2246392.
39. Andreas Krieg, “Security assistance to surrogates – how the UAE secures its regional
objectives,” Mediterranean Politics, (2023), https://doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2023.2183659.
40. As one observer has noted, “Despite being a small state, the UAE aspires to become a re-
gional middle power, not only to mitigate its status insecurities in the regional and interna-
tional system, but also to gain domestic, regional, and international legitimacy that brands
the country as a subject rather than an object of international affairs.” Islam Hassan, “The
UAE: A Small State with Regional Middle Power Aspirations,” in Unfulfilled Aspirations:
Middle Power Politics in the Middle East, edited by Adham Saouli (London: Hurst, 2020), 184.
41. Saouli, “Middling or Meddling,” 18.
42. Hassan, “The UAE: A Small State with Regional Middle Power Aspirations,” 184.
43. Vivian Nereim and Ivan Nechepurenko, “Putin Makes Rare Visit to Mideast,” The New York
Times, (December 6, 2023), https://bit.ly/4bCEgDv.
44. Dion Nissenbaum and Stephen Kalin, “Saudi, Emirati Leaders Decline Calls with Biden
During Ukraine Crisis,” The Wall Street Journal, (March 8, 2022), https://bit.ly/4bJSjXN.
45. Robert Mason, “Small State Aspirations to Middlepowerhood: The Cases of Qatar and the
UAE,” in Unfulfilled Aspirations: Middle Power Politics in the Middle East, edited by Adham
Saouli (London: Hurst, 2020), 174.
46. Ibid.
47. Deniz Gökalp, “The UAE’s Humanitarian Diplomacy: Claiming State Sovereignty, Regional
Leverage and International Recognition,” CMI Working Paper, No. 1, February 2020, 3.
48. Hassan, “The UAE: A Small State with Regional Middle Power Aspirations,” 193–201.
49. Ibid., 221.
50. Ibid., 190.
51. Quoted in, Aziz El Yaakoubi, “UAE troop drawdown in Yemen was agreed with Saudi
Arabia: official,” Reuters, (July 8, 2019), https://bit.ly/4bIP6Yn.
52. Ibrahim Jalal, “The UAE may have withdrawn from Yemen, but its influence remains
strong,” Middle East Institute, (February 25, 2020), https://bit.ly/3OKyHZW.
53. Daniela Traub, Ronen A. Cohen, and Chen Kertcher, “The road to normalization: The
importance of the United Arab Emirates’ neoliberal foreign policy in the normalization
with Israel: 2004–2020,” Digest of Middle East Studies, no. 32, (2023): 61.
54. Saouli, “Introduction,” 9.
55. Kamrava. Qatar: Small State, Bid Politics, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015), 73–96.
56. Daniel Byman, “Understanding, and Misunderstanding, State Sponsorship of Terrorism,”
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 45, no. 12 (2022): 1031–1049.
57. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, “Qatar Under Emir Tamim,” Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic
Studies, (2017), 99, https://bit.ly/49kFK3I.
58. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Qatar and the Gulf Crisis, (London: Hurst, 2020), 83–85.
59. Mehran Kamrava and Hamideh Dorzadeh, “Back to the Future in Iran: Political and Policy
Implications of the 2021 Presidential Elections,” The Muslim World 113, no. 1-2 (2023):
6–18.
60. Mohammad Soltaninejad, “Iran and Southeast Asia: An analysis of Iran’s policy of ‘Look to
the East,’” International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies 13, no. 1 (2017): 29–49.
61. Banafsheh Keynous, “Iran’s Regional Dynamics: A Piecemeal Approach,” Middle East Policy
27, no. 2 (2020): 95–97.
62. Kayhan Barzegar and Masoud Rezaei, “Ayatollah Khamenei’s Strategic Thinking,” Discourse:
An Iranian Quarterly 11 no. 3 (Winter 2017): 34–45.
 Comparative Strategy 129

63. J. Matthew McInnis, “Iran’s Strategic Thinking: Origins and Evolution,” American Enterprise
Institute, (May 2015), iii.
64. Mohammad Eslami and Alena Vysotskaya Guedes Viera, “Shi’a Principles and Iran’s
Strategic Culture Towards Ballistic Missile Deployment,” International Affairs 98, no. 2
(2022): 679.
65. Ibid., 684.
66. Seyed Hossein Mousavian, “A Win-Win for Iran and the Region,” The Cairo Review of
Public Affairs, (2019): 107–118.
67. Jiahua Tang and Rui Pan, “Adjustments and Constraits: Biden Administration’s Iran Policy,”
Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 16, no. 2 (2022): 189–208. For an up-
beat assessment of Biden’s “moral leadership” in US foreign policy toward Iran see, Elham
Rasooli Saniabadi, “National Role Perceptions and Biden’s Foreign Policy towards Iran,”
Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs 12, no. 33 (2021): 127–150.
68. Adbolrasool Divsallar, “Shifting Threats and Strategic Adjustment in Iran’s Foreign Policy:
The case of Strait of Hormuz,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 49, no. 5 (2022):
873–895; and, Ali Bagheri Dolatabadi and Mehran Kamrava, “Iran’s Changing Naval
Strategy in the Persian Gulf: Motives and Features,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
51, no. 1 (2022): 131–148.

Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges open access funding by the Qatar National Library.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.

Notes on contributor
Mehran Kamrava ([email protected]) is professor of Government at Georgetown
University in Qatar and also directs the Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and
Policy Studies. His publications include How Islam Rules in Iran: Theology and Theocracy in the
Islamic Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2024); Righteous Politics: Power and Resilience in
Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2023); Triumph and Despair: In Search of Iran’s Islamic Republic
(Oxford University Press, 2022); and A Dynastic History of Iran: From the Qajars to the Pahlavis
(Cambridge University Press, 2022), among others.

ORCID
Mehran Kamrava http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2198-0215