Oman grapples with its national identity as a neutral mediator after Iran’s attacks

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Baked deep into the national identity of Oman is the sense of being the peaceful place in the middle. It’s tied to the country’s geographic position in the Strait of Hormuz, to its modern history, and even to the migratory patterns of seabirds, millions of which use Oman as a stopover point at this time of year during their northward migration up the Persian Gulf.

A less friendly swarm of airborne visitors has shattered that sensibility over the past five weeks, as a barrage of drones and missiles from Iran has damaged the country’s three major ports and other targets and driven away tourism and business in the first military attack that the sultanate has suffered in 50 years.

Those unexpected blasts have also struck a serious blow to Oman’s self-image and global ambitions, provoking what Omanis close to their ruling monarchy call a “paradigm shift” or a crisis of national identity.

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has marked a double betrayal for Oman, which saw itself as the one country in the region with close and co-operative relations with Iran, the United States and even with Israel, and as the lone entity that could resolve their differences. Only days before the strikes began, Oman had been the host and mediator of talks between Iran’s Islamic regime and the United States, which had appeared close to reaching a resolution on Tehran’s nuclear program and economic sanctions.

Then on the last day of February, without informing anyone in Muscat, the talks ended with the launch of the current U.S.-Israeli military attack – the second time in less than a year that Iran talks in Oman had been scuppered by unexpected air strikes.

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This time, they were followed by an even more surprising rain of weapons on Oman and its neighbouring Persian Gulf countries, apparently intended to strike the U.S. military facilities they host and to disable the flow of petroleum through the Strait of Hormuz.

For Sultan Haitham bin Tariq and his government, this has marked a simultaneous betrayal by Tehran and by Washington, one that has jeopardized the Omani role as a neutral mediator, first established by his cousin and predecessor, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, in the early 1970s.

It appears to have polarized Oman’s allegiances away from the United States and its allies and forced the country to reconsider its long-term economic plans, which were built on the promise of peaceful neutrality.

“This war is going to be a paradigm shift,” said Abdullah Baabood, a Muscat-based political-science professor who has specialized in the relations of Gulf states.

“Oman has based its plans on the fact that the region is stable, safe, secure and under no threat,” he said. “This is going to change everything in terms of how people here think about their position in the world, and in terms of attracting foreign investment. We are going to face quite a new world after the war is over.”

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Officials in the government declined to speak on the record, and in fact instructed citizens to rely on only “official sources” for information about the war. But the Foreign Minister, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, took the very unusual step of going to the international media, in an article he wrote for The Economist and in TV interviews, with an undiplomatic statement that broke any pretense of neutrality and was sharply critical of the United States.

“The American administration’s greatest miscalculation,” he wrote, “was allowing itself to be drawn into this war in the first place.” Notably, he described Iran’s regional retaliation – including its attacks on Oman – as “an inevitable, if deeply regrettable and completely unacceptable, response.”

The word “inevitable” raised eyebrows in Washington. So did a series of recent statements by Oman’s top Islamic religious leader, Grand Mufti Ahmad bin Hamad Al-Khalili, in which he celebrated the “resistance” of Iran’s theocratic regime and lauded the attacks on Gulf Arab countries, including presumably Oman, that have aided the United States and Israel. (Many Omanis believe a widespread conspiracy theory that the attacks were a “false flag” operation by Israel.)

Although the Grand Mufti has frequently made aggressively anti-Israel statements in recent years that haven’t helped Oman’s theoretically neutral stand, including overt support for attacks on the Jewish state, the consensus in Muscat is that those views have a large and possibly majority following among Omanis, and that the Sultan dares not criticize them for fear of igniting a national church-state schism. The sole protest rally that has been permitted in Oman since the war began was one held in Muscat last month in favour of Iran’s regime.

Beyond that, there is a growing sense in the region that Tehran will outlast Washington in this conflict, and that the theocratic regime will not be overthrown. This week saw an apparent agreement between Tehran and Muscat to govern the Strait of Hormuz together, though in practice this would likely make Oman subordinate to Iran in control of shipping movements.

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In general, the sense among informed observers is that Oman’s leaders are trying to plan for a potential future without the United States on their side, but possibly with Iran.

“I think there are very serious discussions taking place in Oman, as well as other Gulf states, about how and to what extent their military partnerships with the United States have contributed to more insecurity than security. … I have to assume that major concerns about being so dependent on the American security umbrella are being articulated,” said Giorgio Cafiero, an expert on the politics of Oman and its neighbours with the Washington-based Gulf State Analytics.

“What those discussions will lead to, I do not know, but what we can say right now is that the view across the Gulf is that the United States has failed to be an effective and reliable security guarantor … But the Gulf Co-operation Council leaders are forced to accept that at least in the short term, there are no alternatives to the U.S. And this leaves the GCC states in a very difficult position.”

However, Omani officials have been insistent that they have not abandoned their country’s neutral position, which has led it to be called the “Switzerland of the Persian Gulf.” That expression, they point out, is not accurate, because unlike Swiss non-involvement, Oman’s is a more active and engaged form of neutrality, in which it tries to actively work with its regional partners.

Thus, Omanis insist, their Foreign Minister lashing out at the Trump administration, and their leaders forgiving Tehran’s attacks are not a break from neutrality, but a sincere but difficult effort to salvage it.

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“I don’t think their neutrality has gone,” said Dr. Baabood. “I don’t think Oman is with or against anyone, but against the escalation and the conflict. They are trying to do their best to de-escalate and to see that this conflict doesn’t go beyond a certain level where it could affect not only their security or stability but the whole region and the whole world.”

A prolonged war would deeply jeopardize Oman’s long-term plans for its economic future. Most Gulf states have strategies built on tourism and foreign-owned service industries – Oman’s is called Vision 2040. But the sultanate, whose smaller oil reserves mean it lacks the seemingly unlimited wealth of some of its Gulf neighbours, is unique in pegging many of its future hopes on its ability not to control but to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. It would do this by using the three ultra-modern ports on the Indian Ocean side of the strait to directly transport petroleum and natural gas from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

“Because Oman’s ports do not depend on the Strait of Hormuz being open, there has been much talk for many years about them serving to help the rest of the GCC bypass the Strait of Hormuz,” said Mr. Cafiero. “And the fact that they were targeted last month does impact that view. However, I still think that the other GCC states will continue to see much utility in these Omani ports.”

The idea of Oman brokering a lasting peace between the Trump administration and the Ayatollahs now seems vanishingly remote. Two rival states, Qatar and most recently Pakistan, have tried to take over that role since the war began.

But just about everyone in Omani leadership circles says that the national ethos of neutrality will remain in force, even if both Washington and Tehran are as much threats as they are partners. For a country caught in the middle of the war, there may be no other choice.

“For Oman, negotiation, dialogue, and mediation are not a choice, they’re a necessity,” said Dr. Baabood. “They are deeply ingrained in the DNA of the Omanis.”