Since the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran on 28 February, the Iranian people have been enduring a devastating assault.
The attackers are bombing hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure in the hope of breaking their resolve.
They have damaged historic cultural sites from Tehran to Isfahan, while strikes on oil depots have filled the skies with toxic smoke.
More than 1,300 people have been killed and more than 15,000 injured.
Despite this toll, Iranian people and leaders turned out en masse for the annual Quds Day marches in defiance of the attack.
Iran, for its part, continues to retaliate against Israeli targets and US bases across the region with devastating effect.
As the war unfolds, it is worth asking a deeper question: What policies can actually provide safety to the countries and peoples of the region?
A revealing glimpse into Arab-regime calculations came during a July 2024 conversation at the Aspen Security Forum between Washington Post columnist David Ignatius and Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa – Bahrain’s national security adviser, chair of its national energy company and son of its monarch.
Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet and was among the Arab states that normalized relations with Israel during US President Donald Trump’s first term through the so-called Abraham Accords.
Speaking about nine months into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Al Khalifa described the accords as “one of the most important milestones that we have achieved” and praised the agreement for allowing Bahrain to maintain close ties with Israel.
What also stands out is how Bahrain approached Iran at the same time. Al Khalifa acknowledged that Bahrain had “cut relations” and had “zero contact” with Iran, even while insisting that diplomacy requires open channels.
This reflects policy across much of the Gulf: deepening alliances with Israel and Washington and hostility towards Iran – the basis of the Abraham Accords.
Yet it is a basic fact that Iran has never attacked any of its Arab neighbors. It is the other way around: These same Arab regimes supported the US-backed Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980, shortly after its revolution against the US-supported monarchy, resulting in eight years of devastating war.
Since then, the Gulf states and other Arab regimes have doubled down on their gamble on Washington and Israel.
Al Khalifa proudly highlighted a 2023 agreement between Bahrain and the United States known as the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement, or CSIPA. The deal includes defense cooperation, intelligence sharing and economic integration.
The Bahraini prince emphasized that the agreement offers Bahrain a NATO-style alliance with Washington. “This is the furthest the United States went in security guarantees to an Arab state,” he said, adding that it is “short of Article Five, but has all the guarantees.”
In theory, this model – which Al Khalifa predicted would be expanded across the region – promised security through subservience to the United States and Israel.
In practice, it has meant integrating Gulf militaries into US-led military systems and hosting American bases used to defend Israel and enable US and Israeli attacks on countries across the region.
Al Khalifa made this clear when discussing Iran’s April 2024 missile and drone retaliation against Israel for the bombing of an Iranian diplomatic mission in Lebanon.
He said Bahrain did its “duty” in helping shoot down Iranian missiles and drones headed for Israel and said Bahrain was proud to be part of the integrated US-organized air defense network that includes Israel and several Arab states.
But the current US-Israeli aggression on Iran exposes the fundamental contradiction in this strategy. By aligning so closely with Washington and Tel Aviv, Arab regimes have turned themselves into belligerents – watching as decades of soft-power branding that sold them as havens of finance, high-end real estate, luxury travel and influencer glitz go up in smoke.
Indeed, it is precisely their irrational hostility toward Iran and their hosting of US bases that now makes them targets. The Fifth Fleet that Al Khalifa described as the “mountain of fire” protecting Bahrain is far off, unable to even enter the Persian Gulf, while its base in Bahrain is being hammered by Iran.
In other words, the security model embraced by the Gulf states produced the opposite of what it promised.
Smoke rises after Iran launched a missile targeting the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Manama, Bahrain, 28 February. Anadolu Images
In a recent article for Middle East Eye, Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad traces the history of this disastrous Arab bet on normalization with Israel back to a Saudi initiative in 1981.
He argues that this pro-Israel alignment has been accompanied by efforts to “convince the Arab peoples that Iran, not Israel, is the major enemy of the Arab nation, even though Israel, then and now, has always threatened both Arab countries and Iran.”
Iran’s vision is fundamentally different. In a recent military briefing, Revolutionary Guard spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari warned that the era of limited retaliatory exchanges was over and that Iran would now strike continuously until its objectives were met.
He accused the United States and Israel of hiding behind regional states, while vowing that the bases used in attacks against Iran would be destroyed.
At the same time, Iran’s leadership continues to emphasize relations with neighboring countries.
In his first statement since becoming supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said Iran seeks “warm and constructive relations” with all of its neighbors but said that foreign military bases used in attacks against Iran should be closed.
Arab states calculated that drawing the United States and Israel deeper into the region would keep them safe.
For Iran, security means pushing Israel and the United States as far away as possible. These contradictory doctrines are now being tested not in theory but through war.
As of now, according to many analyses – including that of University of Chicago military expert Robert Pape – Iran is prevailing and Trump is caught in an “escalation trap” of his own making.
On top of the human catastrophe imposed by the US-Israeli aggression, the economic impact of the war is already multiplying around the world.
The outcome of this confrontation will decide whether the region’s people live free to determine their own future and develop their own resources or spend more generations under American and Zionist colonization and domination.
But one reality is already clear: Arab regimes miscalculated that they could enjoy prosperity and tranquility through an alliance with Tel Aviv and Washington while only Palestinians and those who stood by them paid the price in blood and genocide.
Ali Abunimah is the co-founder of Electronic Intifada web news site. He is an American-Palestinian journalist who lives in Chicago and supports a one state solution for Palestine. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. Courtesy Electronic Intifada
Cover Photograph: Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani was just killed by the US-Israel. In this photograph he is seen walking on the streets of Tehran just a few days ago, in defiance of the war, and as a statement of courage and leadership.