Gulf States Fear US-Iran Talks Will Cement Iran's Strategic Control Over Hormuz Strait

Gulf Arab states are growing alarmed that ongoing US-Iran negotiations will result in a narrow deal focused on the Strait of Hormuz—effectively legitimizing Tehran's leverage over the world's most critical oil shipping route—while sidelining their own security concerns about Iranian missiles and proxies. Medvedev's blunt characterization of Hormuz as Iran's "nuclear weapon" has crystallized fears that diplomats are now tacitly accepting Iran's geographic stranglehold as a manageable fact rather than dismantling it. Iranian security officials privately celebrate the Strait as a long-prepared "golden asset" and a "sword drawn from its sheath," describing years of strategic preparation to weaponize control over the waterway that carries roughly a fifth of global oil supplies.

The shift in negotiation priorities away from rolling back Iran's missile program and toward uranium enrichment limits and Hormuz management reflects a troubling recalibration, Gulf sources warn. What alarmed officials most is that while Iranian missiles, drones, and proxies have repeatedly attacked the region, the talks are framed almost exclusively around Hormuz because of its global economic impact—marginalizing the security consequences borne by Gulf states themselves. Ebtesam Al-Ketbi of the Emirates Policy Center argues bluntly that "what is taking shape today is not a historic settlement but a deliberate engineering of sustainable conflict," with the Gulf states suffering from missiles and proxies but excluded from core decision-making.

Gulf Arab leaders have privately urged Washington against full sanctions relief and advocated for a phased approach to test Iranian behavior, but sentiment toward the US now ranges from quiet resentment to frustration over unilateral American decision-making. While diplomats acknowledge that US military superiority remains indispensable—Gulf defenses were bolstered by sophisticated THAAD and Patriot systems during the war—analysts warn that overdependence on a single external protector has clear limits. The core tension is whether Iran's threats to close Hormuz, once a longstanding taboo, will be negotiated as a permanent feature of Middle East politics rather than as an unacceptable red line to be eliminated.