Gulf diplomacy must intensify after the changes and turning points of recent days. Joint delegations should engage European allies, as well as other countries with which the Gulf maintains strong relations, such as China and Russia, and urge them to help introduce the final chapter of Iran's hostile regime. Vahidi, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, has succeeded in unifying the world against Iran and making confrontation inevitable. This will play a major role in mobilizing an international coalition to protect the vital corridors through which goods, oil, and other essential supplies flow.
These positions must now be turned into alliances and concrete action.
Vahidi's greatest mistake was sticking to Iran's old bets without the skill or competence to use them effectively: the stick of escalation followed by the carrot of negotiations.
His escalation threatens international security. He failed to realize that he had spent the Strait of Hormuz card before it gave the world a reason to unite against Iran. He then squandered the Iranian "carrot" (the game of negotiations, which Tehran presents to the international community as though it were a gift), insisting on closing the strait; even when the time for talks came, he failed to use the card well. He then issued his most dangerous threat, ordering the closure of Bab el-Mandeb.
The second card Vahidi squandered was the effort Iran had made since the war's opening days to divide the Gulf states, by suggesting that it did not regard every Gulf country as a target. Vahidi undercut this effort by striking the mediators and neutral parties, before committing his latest irresponsible act: mobilizing the Houthis. In this he failed.
Iranian policymakers had worked to differentiate their positions toward the Gulf Cooperation Council states, hoping to prevent the formation of a united eastern front from forming against them. They deliberately varied the direction of their strikes from one Gulf state to another. This was a tactic, not a strategic position.
Iran's second tactic for sowing division within the Council was to create a divergence among the Gulf states themselves. It did not target the states that opened the door to settlements and mediation as heavily as those that refused them, seeking to convince the former that its expansionist project would spare them. That is false in the extreme, and Vahidi drained this card of its momentum by striking those very states.
Vahidi appears to lack patience. Second, the return to fighting has triggered the fiercest round yet; offers of negotiation no longer work. His military need to relieve the pressure drove him to instruct the Houthis to move and threaten Bab el-Mandeb. It was a decision that betrayed the absence of any military strategy, because it was bound to stir the world (to the advantage of the Gulf states, which have adopted a position that treats the Iranian threat as a general one, whether it comes from Iran or from its proxies). It forces a reassessment, with all agreeing that Iran poses a genuine threat to the security of the entire region- indeed to the security of the whole world, and that it must be dealt with in a serious manner.
Yes, Vahidi has succeeded in rallying the European states around America to put an end to this reckless assault on the security of the world and its waterways. Britain has therefore opened its bases to the US military, because the threat has become one and the same.
