As the recent conflict in the Gulf leaves the region deeply scarred, the time has come for a clear-eyed assessment, writes the Sultanate’s foreign minister in an opinion piece for Le Monde. In his view, the most serious threats do not come from Tehran, but from Tel Aviv.
The people of the Sultanate of Oman and its Gulf neighbors are now living with the consequences of a war that should never have taken place. Their greatest hope is that we are truly witnessing the end of this conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran — not merely a temporary pause in the fighting.
Even though the war has not formally ended, and despite the possibility that one of the parties may recklessly reignite it, we must begin drawing lessons from what has happened. Rather than dwelling on the recent past, on the mistakes and miscalculations that led to this crisis, we must now focus our attention on the future.
One priority stands above all others. Complex discussions are underway to establish a lasting framework that guarantees freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. As one of only two states whose territorial waters border this strategic waterway, Oman bears a particular responsibility. It must work alongside Iran — the other littoral state — and the wider international community, which depends heavily on this maritime passage, to develop a realistic, sustainable, and internationally lawful framework that permanently safeguards freedom of navigation.
The success of these consultations is essential to the global economy. Free passage through the Strait of Hormuz remains one of the cornerstones of international trade. In this regard, I would like to acknowledge the particularly constructive role played by France during these discussions. However, the urgency of this issue must not prevent us from looking further ahead. The Strait of Hormuz is only one element of a much broader strategic landscape that also requires careful reflection.
Vital Interests to Defend
Since 1979, security in the Gulf has largely been organized around what became known as the policy of “containment.” This doctrine, based primarily on exclusion, assumed that the principal objective of the region’s security architecture was to protect the Arab Gulf — and the Western interests associated with it — from the existential threat supposedly posed by Iran.
That assumption, however, was fundamentally mistaken.
Tehran did not constitute an existential threat. The enormous military expenditures throughout the region, the expansion of American military bases across the Gulf, and the maintenance of a long-range military protection presence were all developed and sustained at tremendous cost, yet without providing genuine strategic value.
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