00:00You know, this threat that has come through from President Trump, and if he actually does follow through,
00:05which means they would go after Iranian power plants at a wide scale, on a wide scale,
00:13and in response to that, most likely you would see Iran retaliate against Gulf infrastructure in a more meaningful fashion.
00:20What do you think the line is for Gulf countries to move from a defensive posture to a more offensive
00:29posture
00:29and potentially participate in this war militarily, if it does actually come to that?
00:34I think there's still a great reluctance for the Gulf states to engage in this militarily.
00:41There's clearly a spectrum. I think the UAE sits on one end of the spectrum. Oman sits on the far
00:47end.
00:47So there is a prospect that the UAE, perhaps Saudi, could engage, depending where the Houthis sit in this conflict.
00:58But I think for the main part, I think they want to sit out.
01:03They don't want to be drawn into the conflict, not necessarily because they don't wish for the Iranian regime to
01:10be removed,
01:12but because they're going to have to live with Iran, whatever that looks like, at the end of this conflict.
01:17Whether that pushes out to the end of April, as your polymarket graph was sort of pointing towards or not,
01:24there will be a major concern that if they actually engage in this,
01:28then they will be opening the can to something much larger
01:32and something that they'll be unable to control in a post-conflict zone.
01:39Yeah, yeah. So still a degree of cautiousness vis-a-vis getting involved militarily.
01:46What about the efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz?
01:49And again, we've heard from many Gulf states, and perhaps the most vocal have been the likes of the UAE,
01:55saying that this is an outcome, an outcome in which Iran still effectively maintains control
01:59or tries to control the Strait of Hormuz is unacceptable for them.
02:02How do you see Gulf states' participation to help bring back the Strait to what it was before the war?
02:12I mean, the U.S. would absolutely have to take the lead on this,
02:15and the European states would need to come together.
02:18So the UAE in particular, perhaps Saudi could provide some cover to be part of a broader and wider coalition,
02:26but there would have to be clarity in terms of the mission,
02:31clarity in terms of the longevity of that mission.
02:34So they could provide material support, but they wouldn't just simply go in with the U.S.
02:41I mean, we've heard President Trump talk about opening the Strait now for a good three or four weeks.
02:47We've seen nothing material in terms of that.
02:50We have seen the U.K. sort of try to take a leading role in building a coalition of forces
02:58that would move in in a post-conflict phase.
03:02But there's nothing concrete at the moment, I think, through which the Gulf states can kind of anchor themselves to.
03:09We are hearing a lot of bullish comments, particularly from the UAE presidential advisor, Anwar Gargash,
03:16and we've also seen the op-ed from Al-Otebe, the UAE ambassador to Washington.
03:27But at present, it's a lot of talk.
03:31It's a lot of strong talk, but we're not actually seeing a lot materialize and come together.
03:39Let me ask you about also an article that you and your colleague, Sanam Vakil, put together in Foreign Policy.
03:47And you were evaluating the Gulf Arab states, their defense, and how they're going to be thinking about defense in
03:54coming years,
03:55but also the security arrangement that many of them have with the U.S.
03:58And I wonder how you see that evolving once this war is over and whether, from their perspective,
04:06actually hosting the U.S. bases has made them more vulnerable.
04:11I mean, clearly, hosting the U.S. bases has made them more vulnerable, but there is no alternative.
04:17There will be no alternative, you know, from now until the medium term.
04:21And by medium term, I mean for the next four or five years at least.
04:25There is no real alternative to the U.S.
04:27But what we've already seen prior to the war, and we're going to probably see accelerating,
04:34are the Gulf states seeking to develop sort of supplementary partners, say, not alternative partners.
04:42So working together would be the first step.
04:46I mean, we've long heard of the Arab NATO model.
04:50It always seems very far-fetched.
04:52There are big degrees of separation amongst the six Gulf states and reasons why they wouldn't coordinate and cooperate.
04:59But now, given their vulnerability, given what they're suffering, number one, from U.S. unpredictability,
05:07from seeing Israel in the ascendant and carrying out attacks in neighboring states almost at will,
05:14and now Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, those Gulf states are going to really have to sort of come
05:20together and work together.
05:22But also creating what Sanam and I sort of call those mini-lateral arrangements,
05:28working with Egypt, working with Jordan, working with Turkey, working with Pakistan,
05:33in smaller sort of military configurations, which are sort of issue-focused and issue-based,
05:39as a prelude to sort of moving towards the system in the longer term when their dependence upon the U
05:47.S. sort of diminishes.
05:48But no doubt about it, the U.S. is going to be a major military partner for a long time
05:54to come.
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