It’s been three days since the talks in Pakistan concluded with nothing and the U.S. began its blockade of Iranian ports shortly thereafter. Hopes for a negotiated end to the six-week-long war in Iran have started to wane.
For Iran’s Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf, the risks of a return to full-fledged hostilities between the U.S.-Israeli alliance and Iran are enormous.
Iran’s retaliation for Operation Epic Fury has already entailed swift attacks on U.S.-allied Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, which slowed down but did not entirely stop after the Pakistani-mediated ceasefire went into effect. The month-long aggression quickly ended the fragile détente between Tehran and several Gulf monarchies.
Yet the intensity of Tehran’s attacks has varied from one GCC member to the other, suggesting that the future trajectory of Gulf states’ policies toward Iran are unlikely to be uniform. Within the GCC, Oman has consistently maintained a normal if not special relationship with Tehran. Several indicators suggest that this unique position will persist.
Since the war began, Iran has reportedly launched drones at the Omani port cities of Duqm, Salalah, and Sohar. Yet despite taking responsibility for strikes on all other GCC states, it has refused in the case of Oman. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei denied Tehran’s involvement and attributed the attacks to Israel instead. Unlike its counterparts in the rest of the Gulf, Oman’s foreign ministry refrained from naming Iran in its official statements in response to the drone attacks.
In both property damage and human cost, Oman has suffered far less from recent Iranian attacks than its Gulf neighbors, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE). No missiles have hit Omani territory, and Muscat remains the only GCC capital spared from Tehran’s attacks throughout the conflict.
Oman was also the only GCC state to express “deep regrets” in response to Washington and Tel Aviv’s decision to launch a war against Iran on February 28, which Muscat called a “violation of international law.” Furthermore, Oman’s chief diplomat penned an article in The Economist in which he condemned Iran’s attacks on GCC states as “unacceptable,” while also stating that this response was “probably the only rational option available to the Iranian leadership” given that Tehran was “faced with what both Israel and America described as a war designed to terminate the Islamic Republic.”
Additionally, Oman was the only GCC state untouched by Iranian military operations following the Pakistani-mediated “ceasefire” which took effect on April 7-8.
Oman is uniquely positioned to remain the GCC’s most Iran-friendly member. Though other Gulf Arab monarchies such as the UAE may find Oman’s relationship with Iran suspicious, Muscat will work to preserve its “friends to all, enemies to none” foreign policy doctrine.
“As it has done before, Oman will have to coordinate and balance its relations with Iran with those of the other GCC states. Oman’s penchant for independent foreign policy is well known within the GCC, if not always liked,” Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told RS.
A bridging role
Far from a passive bystander, Oman has long pursued a policy of “active neutrality,” using its close partnership with the United States and its friendly, neighborly relationship with Iran to act as a credible and effective diplomatic bridge.
Oman’s facilitation of secret talks at the end of President Barack Obama’s first term was critical to the eventual negotiation of the historic 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Beyond U.S.-Iran relations, Oman has also worked to ease regional tensions. Muscat played a key role, for example, in helping to bring about Saudi-Iranian renormalization in 2023.
“Omani officials prided themselves for uber pragmatism” in their foreign policy decisions, Joseph Kechichian, a senior fellow at the King Faisal Centre in Riyadh and author of Oman and the World: The Emergence of an Independent Foreign Policy, told RS. He believes that Muscat will likely retain and even deepen its ties with Tehran while continuing to “play a critical role to reconcile various positions among belligerents.”
However, Kechichian expects some possible changes in the dynamics surrounding Muscat’s bridging role. “The fact that Pakistan is now acting as a go-between further highlights that [Omani leader] Sultan Haitham may have decided to maintain a certain distance. At least for now,” he added.
Share stewardship of the strait
Oman and Iran are the two countries whose territory sits on either side of the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterway separates the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, through which 20% of the world’s oil and gas traverses during normal times. Shared interests in maintaining security through this critical chokepoint have long given Muscat and Tehran extra incentives to maintain cooperative relations.
Their geographic interdependence was one of many factors that led to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Sultan Qaboos bin Said working closely together on regional security issues well before the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. For many decades, Oman and Iran maintained cooperative mechanisms to ensure naval coordination, maritime safety, including in search-and-rescue operations, and discreet communication, even amid periods of heightened regional tensions.
Mehran Haghirian, the Director of Regional Initiatives at the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, warns against assuming that this cooperation “could evolve into some form of joint arrangement over passage,” which would jeopardize the Sultanate’s relationships with other Arab states and much of the international community. “Its engagement with Iran should not be mistaken for endorsement of its actions,” he told RS.
Oman has long worried about the consequences of a possible war between the U.S.-Israeli alliance and Iran over control of the strait because this scenario would likely produce dangerous spillover effects into the Musandam Peninsula, which lies on the southern side of the strait.
In practice, neither Iran nor Oman can secure the strait by itself, making ongoing bilateral coordination and cooperation essential. This means that Omani-Iranian cooperation in the strait is “likely to remain intact and even deepen quietly,” according to Salem Ben Nasser Al-Ismaily, a former Omani foreign ministry advisor.
The idea of Tehran maintaining de facto control of the artery raises sensitive questions regarding Oman’s national security.
“Greater Iranian assertiveness could invite more Western/Gulf naval presence, which will raise the risk of miscalculation near Omani waters,” Ismaily said. Ultimately, Iranian control of the strait will not benefit Oman. Instead “predictable, shared stewardship of the strait” will, explained Ismaily.
Iran’s current “control” over the strait requires careful contextualization, Haghirian said. Threats to vessels and talk of a new toll system are transient measures tied to the ongoing conflict. They do not reflect a sustainable, peacetime arrangement.
“If Iran moves from signaling to enforcement by targeting ‘non-compliant’ vessels, laying more mines, or imposing a $2 million toll backed by force, that is not something Oman will accept, and it is not something the region or the international community will tolerate without escalation,” Haghirian told RS.
Oman’s short-term goal will thus be to minimize disruption to the strait and engage in dialogue with Iran aimed at finding a long-term solution, he noted. “Anything else risks turning this into a much larger confrontation.”
In the end, Omani-Iranian cooperation over the strait is likely to continue, albeit discreetly. Muscat will emphasize shared responsibility rather than Iranian dominance, framing its role as a stabilizing force. For Omani officials, the greatest threat to their interests in the strait is a wider escalation between Iran and its adversaries, which could disrupt Oman’s careful balancing act.
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