BY: POURIA HAMOUNI
The Iran war is far from over, but it has already revealed something important about today’s shifting world order: usable relations between states are no longer merely just tools in a foreign-policy toolbox; they have become a major source of power. The war matters not only because Iran is confronting the United States and Israel, or because its effects are already being felt in the global economy. It also matters because a wide range of actors, each with different economic capacities, military capabilities, and diplomatic leverage, have been drawn into its consequences. That makes the Iran war more than an armed conflict. It is a test case for understanding how states can use their relations to seize opportunities in crises, limit damage, and manage costs.
Oman and the Arab States of the Persian Gulf
The isolation of Iran and the reduction of its share in the global economy after the Iranian Revolution benefited the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. It increased their share in energy markets while turning them into economic and financial intermediaries on which Iran depended to bypass Western sanctions and withstand pressure. Until the beginning of the Iran war, the isolation of their northern neighbor from the West remained one of the foundations of their regional policies. This policy was reflected in Saudi-Emirati opposition to the JCPOA and in their lobbying for U.S. withdrawal from the agreement.
However, none of these states wanted the Iran war. The heavy costs of the Iran-Iraq War still haunted their strategic memory. Contrary to their expectations, their support for U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA did not merely lead to Iran’s isolation. In the absence of any mechanism for managing disputes between Iran and the West, the accumulation of tensions eventually pushed the spillover effects of the crisis into the Arab states neighboring Iran. The war was a strategic catastrophe for all the states of the Persian Gulf, and they failed to prevent it, whether through their powerful lobbies or through their special relations with the U.S. president. After the war began, Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz and launched attacks on their territories on the grounds that they hosted U.S. bases.
The most painful loss for the Arab states of the Persian Gulf is not material damage alone, but the uncertainty surrounding their future outlook. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar have pursued an economic development model based on global integration, presenting themselves as havens for foreign investment, tourism, and commerce. Iranian attacks have undermined this vision. Increasing tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE will further securitize the Arabian Peninsula. Since the war began, powers other than the United States have become involved in providing security to the region. Saudi Arabia has concluded a defense pact with Pakistan, while the UAE has signed a letter of intent for strategic defence partnership with India, further complicating the region’s security landscape. The involvement of two rival South Asian nuclear powers in the security architecture of the Persian Gulf could tighten the link between tensions in West Asia and South Asia.
Among these states, Oman stands out as the one least harmed by the Iran war. One major reason is its deep ties with Iran. Both before and after the Iranian Revolution, Oman maintained close ties with Iran and served as Iran’s trusted intermediary whenever negotiations with the United States were required. Before the war, Oman made significant efforts to broker a deal between the United States and Iran.
As the war expanded after the ceasefire, Iran struck Omani territory once, on the grounds that the United States had used Oman’s territory to attack Iran. Iran’s Foreign Ministry, however, did not describe the attack as a shift in the nature of relations between the two countries. Instead, it blamed the American side for “imposing its will on Oman.” Before the Iranian attack, the two countries had reached an agreement on the conditions for maritime passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran-Oman diplomatic relations therefore remain unique among Iran’s neighbors in the Persian Gulf.
Oman’s limited disputes with its Arab neighbors may also make it more resilient to future security threats. Oman does not have the powerful lobbies of neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, nor does it have their economic capacity. But because of its deep ties with Iran and its other neighbors, it absorbed the shock of the war without allowing it to destroy its diplomatic channels. Oman’s experience does not show that balanced relations eliminate risk. Rather, it shows that they can limit escalation, preserve communication, and prevent a military incident from turning into a complete diplomatic rupture. Maintaining balanced relations with its neighbors makes future security threats to Oman less likely.
Pakistan and India
Pakistan sought to turn the 2025 India–Pakistan ceasefire into a diplomatic opening with the Trump administration. New Delhi denied that Washington had played any role in ending the conflict, but Islamabad praised Trump as the mediator for ceasefire and used the episode to cultivate closer ties with the president of the United States.
After the outbreak of the Iran war, Pakistan succeeded in becoming a trusted mediator for almost all parties involved, except Israel. Türkiye, with its highly active and experienced diplomatic apparatus, was also eager to play this role. But Iran appeared more inclined to trust Pakistan with mediation. For several years, Pakistan has served as Iran’s protecting power in the United States. Pakistan also maintains strong religious and economic ties with Arab countries. The Iran-Saudi rapprochement has so far prevented Iran from reacting negatively to the Saudi-Pakistani defense pact. Following its mediation efforts during the war, Pakistan has arguably emerged as the central player in the diplomatic arena of West Asia.
By contrast, the Iran war became a serous strategic challenge for India. After the Ukraine war, international pressure on Russia’s energy sector made India’s energy-security calculations more complex. India had been trying to deepen its ties with Israel. Before the Iran war, the Indian prime minister traveled to Israel and signed several agreements on security and advanced technology, signaling the expansion of relations between the two countries at different levels. Iran and India share deep civilizational ties as well as extensive economic relations. But during the years in which Iran faced Western sanctions, India increasingly distanced itself from cooperation with Iran. India’s efforts to deepen ties with Israel made Iran more suspicious of India’s international positioning and intentions. India’s challenges after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz revealed its vulnerability in terms of energy security. India also has the largest diaspora population in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Many families rely on income sent by workers in these countries. The Iran war and the resulting economic volatility have harmed the livelihoods of this group. While Pakistan became the most active player in West Asian diplomacy during the Iran war, India found itself diplomatically constrained.
Pakistan’s extensive ties with the states involved allowed it to leverage its relations to mediate in a significant crisis and gain international recognition and credibility. By contrast, because India failed to keep its relations with the parties to the conflict in balance, it could not do much to manage its strategic challenges in the region despite its rising geopolitical capacity. The contrast between Pakistan and India shows that geopolitical capacity alone is not enough. What matters is whether a state can activate its relations at the right moment and with the right parties.
Russia and China
The behavior of Russia and China, as two great powers not directly involved in the Iran war, is worth examining. Russia announced its readiness to play a mediating role in the Iran crisis and even proposed taking custody of Iran’s enriched uranium. Russia seemed to be a natural mediator, given its close ties with Iran, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, and Israel. But the United States was reluctant to allow Russia, while still involved in the war in Ukraine, to play such an important role and gain leverage over Washington in future negotiations over Ukraine. Therefore, despite Russia’s extensive ties, its involvement in the Ukraine war prevented it from playing a decisive role in the Iran war.
China, on the other hand, has avoided direct involvement in the crisis despite its extensive ties with all parties involved. This does not mean that the Iran war and its consequences are unimportant to China, nor does it indicate passivity in China’s diplomatic apparatus. Playing the role of mediator could complicate China’s future relations with the Arab states of the Persian Gulf and, most importantly, with the United States. Mediation in the Iran war differs from China’s mediation between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023. In 2023, both parties sought to reduce tensions without being directly engaged in war, and China’s mediation was seen as a sign of its growing diplomatic credibility and influence in West Asia. China’s calculations about mediation in the Iran war are very different from Pakistan’s. Because of the depth of its economic, financial, and strategic relations with all parties, China was more exposed to the potential costs of mediation. Pakistan, by contrast, lacks such extensive relations and therefore seeks international recognition and foreign-policy opportunities.
By avoiding direct involvement, China is protecting a strategic asset: access to all parties to the conflict. China’s great advantage lies in its ability to maintain a neutral position without losing its ties with any side. As long as its strategic interests remain untouched, it is unlikely to enter the crisis on behalf of any party. Getting involved in the Iran war could exhaust China’s leverage in future conflicts in regions of greater strategic importance to Beijing. In today’s world of tariff wars, protectionism, and friendshoring, any unnecessary action can limit not only diplomatic freedom and access to export markets, but also future options for managing security crises.
Because of its involvement in the war in Ukraine, Russia not only failed to leverage its extensive ties with the parties involved to mediate in such a major crisis, but also failed to play a decisive role. China, by contrast, because it had not become entangled in other major crises, had the option to play a significant role in the Iran crisis. Yet it still preferred to preserve its position by maintaining relations with all sides. In today’s world, having extensive relations is no longer enough. The spread of armed conflicts across the world reduces states’ ability to make use of their relations. The power of relations today lies not only in their breadth or historical depth, but also in the ability to choose the time, arena, and manner of using them.
When Access Becomes Leverage
The armed conflicts of the past year — Pakistan and Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, the 12-day war, the Iran war, the continuing war in Ukraine, and armed conflicts across West Asia — indicate that the diplomatic capacity for managing tensions in international relations has significantly eroded, and that disputes are increasingly likely to escalate into armed conflict.
In the current environment, maintaining balanced relations has become increasingly important, whether for managing crises and reducing damage, as in the case of Oman, or for seizing opportunities during crises, as in the case of Pakistan. Another important point, however, is that such relations are built with difficulty over many years, and sometimes even centuries. States therefore cannot instantly establish these ties during a crisis and rely on them for crisis management. Saudi Arabia, for example, was not protected from Iranian strikes simply because of its 2023 rapprochement with Iran.
Under such conditions, states that lack the strategic depth of great and middle powers may choose to forgo the benefits of balanced relations and instead move toward international alignments. The UAE is a prime example of such a state in the Iran war. Despite the material, psychological, and security costs of the war, the UAE did not reduce tension with its neighbors or expand relations with them. Instead, the UAE seems determined to deepen its ties with the West and Israel, drawing on their networks of power and influence.
The more the world moves toward armed conflict, the harder it becomes to maintain balanced relations with both sides of a conflict. In the absence of balanced relations, and amid rising global tensions, military alignments will become one of the main options for states seeking security. Yet the logic of these alignments is incompatible with maintaining balanced ties with different parties to a conflict. States may therefore become trapped in a vicious cycle that pushes relations toward greater tension and even a security dilemma.
As a result, maintaining balanced relations with adversarial states in today’s tense international environment has become both more difficult and more valuable. Such relations are strategic assets that can significantly influence states’ geopolitical capacity to manage crises, reduce damage, contain consequences, and seize opportunities. In today’s world, balanced relations with adversaries are not merely a form of diplomatic freedom; they are a rare source of power.
