Hussein Ibish, Columnist

An Arab Plan B for Containing Iran

Plan A was the nuclear deal. That’s over. Now key Gulf states want the U.S. to flex more muscle.

May 21, 2018 at 4:01 AM UTC

By Hussein Ibish

Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

Containment
Photographer: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

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President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal didn’t draw much international applause, but three U.S. allies in the Middle East — Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — warmly welcomed the move.

Israel had long said that the deal didn’t do enough to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, and Gulf Arab countries believed it gave Iran cover for an intensified campaign of destabilizing the Arab world. And they have plenty of ideas when it comes to drawing up a Plan B for a U.S.-led containment campaign against Iran.