Did the alliance with the USA turn out to be a trap? Strong analysis from Qatar after the attack on LNG terminals

The failure of the US negotiations with Iran is not the greatest threat to peace, but an agreement without taking into account the interests of the Persian Gulf states and their expectations – wrote in a comment on Monday by the Qatari analytical center, the Middle East Council on Global Affairs.

The council – a Qatari non-profit research center – emphasized that although no Arab state had agreed to use its territory for offensive operations, Iran attacked all of them in the first week of the war. He treated the mere presence of American military installations as a sufficient reason for attacks.

The Persian Gulf countries did not use their alliances for offensive actions, the Council recalled. These countries suffered over $120 billion in economic losses. In Qatar, the LNG production facility in Ras Laffan was damaged and repairs will take three to five years, and the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain have used over 75 percent. its stockpile of Patriot interceptors.

The alliance with the US was supposed to prevent such a scenario, but it was the US that made it the target of the attack, noted the Qatari think tank.

Arab countries did not participate in the failed US-Iran talks mediated by Pakistan. It was a mistake, the Persian Gulf countries should be included in the agreement – it was emphasized in the text, adding that there were purely pragmatic reasons behind it.

It is the Arab states that have the infrastructure to enforce any restrictions imposed on Iran or other points of the future agreement, noted the authors of the commentary.

In their opinion, it is also necessary to start a serious assessment of the policy of locating third-country military bases in the region. According to the Qatari center, the war between the US and Israel against Iran has shown that countries hosting foreign military bases expose themselves to danger without having any influence on the development of events.

A new agreement is needed that would make consent to foreign military bases conditional on protection during war and participation in diplomatic talks ending the conflict, commented a Qatari think tank.

The Council also commented on the American suggestion that the USA and Iran could jointly manage traffic tolls in the Strait of Hormuz. According to the center, this signals “a willingness to treat the most important strategic corridor of the Persian Gulf as a bilateral affair between the US and Iran, formalizing a condominium of superpowers over a waterway on which six other sovereign states depend for their economic survival.” (PAP)

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