THE ECONOMIST: Arab states silent on Iran as Gulf fears collapse would spark missile risks, refugee wave

The last time Iran was convulsed by nationwide protests, in 2022, the Arab world was transfixed.

The Islamic Republic had spent decades building a network of powerful allies that came to dominate the region.

Many Arabs wondered if the prospect of regime change in Tehran offered a chance to throw off Iran’s yoke in their own countries.

Pan-Arab news outlets, often funded by Gulf monarchies, egged on the protests with sympathetic, round-the-clock coverage. Arab diplomats kept their counsel in public but sounded ebullient in private.

At one point Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, accused Saudi-backed media outlets of inciting further unrest and demanded that the kingdom rein in their coverage. “Otherwise you will pay the price,” he warned.

The protests in Iran today arguably pose an even greater threat to the regime than those in 2022 — yet the reaction in the Arab world has been surprisingly muted.

Evening news broadcasts this month have been led, routinely, by stories other than Iran. Many officials sound nervous when they comment, if they say anything at all. Two things account for the change in tone: Iran’s diminished status, and the Gulf’s growing fear of chaos.

The Israeli wars that followed the massacre of October 7, 2023 have wrecked Iran’s network of proxies.

Hezbollah, its once-powerful ally in Lebanon, has been badly weakened and still faces near-daily Israeli air strikes. Bashar al-Assad’s pro-Iranian regime in Syria is no more. Iran itself is reeling from 12 days of Israeli and American bombardment in June.

As for Salami, he no longer makes threats: he was killed by an Israeli air strike at the beginning of that war.

All of this makes the fate of the Islamic Republic seem less urgent. Syrians might feel a sense of Schadenfreude at its woes, but they no longer live in fear of its militias.

When Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, flew to Beirut in October 2024, at the height of Israel’s war with Hezbollah, many Lebanese saw his visit as an infuriating show of support for the militia during a war they opposed. Yet his most recent trip, on January 8, prompted more amusement than annoyance.

At a time when Iranians were in the streets protesting about his government’s failed economic policies, a seemingly tone-deaf Mr Araghchi brought along an economic delegation to discuss their meagre trade ties.

He also made time to sign copies of his new book, The Power Of Negotiation — an ironic title, since his failed effort at negotiating with America last year ended with a squadron of B-2 bombers blowing up the uranium-enrichment facility at Fordow.

In a recent interview with The Economist Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, described Iran as having been “relegated to a second-rate power”, an assessment that many Arab officials have come to share.

The biggest stories in the Arab world over the past two weeks have been the falling-out between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and clashes between the central government and a Kurdish militia in northern Syria. Neither involved Iran.

Still, if Iran is no longer a regional colossus, it is not totally impotent either. That is another reason for the restrained reaction in Arab Gulf states.

For the second time in seven months, officials there are watching nervously to see if America will attack Iran. Donald Trump has threatened to act if the regime killed protesters; it has already murdered hundreds.

On January 13 the American president is expected to meet advisers and discuss his options, which range from military strikes to cyber-attacks and tighter economic sanctions. Mr Trump has urged Iranians to keep protesting and “take over” institutions, promising that “help is on its way”.

Though Israel damaged Iran’s arsenal of long-range ballistic missiles during the June war, the regime still has thousands of short-range projectiles capable of hitting targets across the Gulf.

After America bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, the regime fired a salvo of them at al-Udeid air base in Qatar, which hosts the regional headquarters of America’s central command. The strike was largely symbolic: Iran warned America and Qatar in advance, and all but one of its missiles were intercepted.

Iranian officials have cautioned their Gulf counterparts that they will widen their targets if attacked again — perhaps to include Bahrain, home to America’s Fifth Fleet. Such threats may be just bluster.

An Iranian attack that caused real damage in the Gulf would probably trigger an enormous American response.

Then again, if the Islamic Republic felt existential peril from a mix of domestic protests and foreign attacks, it might take the gamble. In any event, Gulf rulers have no desire to call its bluff.

They also worry about what comes next. They have spent most of this century dealing with the consequences of state collapse in Iraq, after the American-led invasion, and then in Syria, during a long civil war. Unrest in those countries sent everything from jihadists to amphetamines flowing into Jordan and the Gulf.

The Saudis also have a civil war in neighbouring Yemen to worry about, and another across the Red Sea in Sudan.

The last thing they want is state collapse in Iran, a country of 92 million people just 200km across the water. Refugees are one concern. Weapons are another: a fragmented Iran might lose control over its arsenal of missiles and drones, to say nothing of the thousands of kilograms of uranium still unaccounted for after the war.

There is no love lost between Arab regimes and the Islamic Republic. The former would welcome a new Iranian government that was willing to curtail its nuclear program and its support for Arab militias.

After two years of regional war, however, many Middle Eastern governments now fear that unrest in Iran will lead to more chaos rather than less.