When Israel assassinated a number of senior Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists on June 13, there was an initial euphoria among some ruling elites in the Gulf. They saw it as a sign of Iran’s diminishing regional threat.
Relations between Gulf states and Iran have been fraught since 1979 when Iran’s former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, vowed to export the revolution that had brought him to power that same year. This set off decades of ideologically charged proxy conflicts, with Gulf states viewing Iran as the principal destabilising force in the Middle East.
But the recent euphoria gave way to unease as the push by Israel – and then the US – for regime change in Tehran became clear. Following US strikes against Iranian nuclear sites, US president Donald Trump floated the idea of overthrowing the government to “make Iran great again”.
