The Gulf wants solidarity, but on whose terms?

In a hotel in Hafar Al-Batin, on the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, I found myself on my first assignment outside Egypt. It was early 1991, and I had been sent to cover the war to liberate Kuwait from Iraq’s occupation.

There, I met a Kuwaiti official running his country’s media center. I told him about the instinctive solidarity Egyptians felt toward Kuwaitis—especially the thousands who had been spending their summer, as usual, in Cairo, only to wake up on Aug. 2, 1990, to a vanished state, no government, no money. Overnight, they had been reduced to the “19th province” of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

At the time, Egyptian families opened their homes. Others refused to take rent from Kuwaiti visitors. It was enough to say “I’m Kuwaiti” to be met with warmth from a people known for their generosity and unguarded emotion.

The official looked at me with thinly veiled disdain. His reply was blunt, edged with arrogance. “Listen carefully. We don’t want anything from Egyptians. The Americans will liberate Kuwait. You stand with us because you want Kuwait’s money and debt relief.”

Egypt and Syria would go on to send troops. The Damascus Declaration followed, bringing them together with the six Gulf states in an Arab alliance meant to protect regional security without foreign intervention. But in practice, Gulf leaders chose otherwise—placing their faith in American protection, and hosting US forces on permanent bases.

What do they want from Egypt?

That exchange, 35 years ago, returned to me as I followed the current debate over Egypt’s stance on the US-Israeli war against Iran. Some prominent commentators, particularly from the UAE and Kuwait, have resorted to pointed insinuations—questioning Egypt’s failure to support them against Iran, whose missiles and drones continue to strike Gulf skies.

This comes despite decades of Gulf support for Egypt, and despite the labor of millions of Egyptians in those countries—remittances that now exceed revenues from both the Suez Canal and tourism.

Still, it is difficult to discern what, exactly, is being asked of Egypt in a war launched unilaterally by US President Donald Trump in coordination with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

To read some of these commentaries, one might think Egypt was expected, from the first day of the war, to declare its readiness to send troops to defend Gulf states—while those same states have yet to decide whether to enter the war themselves.

That hesitation, despite explicit American and Israeli pressure, is, in fact, to their credit. It reflects a sober reading of a far more complicated reality.

The United States and Israel can wage war, bomb widely, then withdraw. Gulf states cannot. They will remain neighbors to Iran. Geography does not change.

Whether Iran continues as an Islamic republic, returns to monarchy, or descends into chaos and civil war, it will remain a decisive force shaping Gulf security and stability.

And if Gulf states choose direct confrontation with a country steeped in a long sense of historical grandeur, they risk awakening a vengeance the Iranians will not forget.

Whose war is it?

The more urgent—and more honest—question is what Egypt could actually offer if Gulf leaders were to request its participation.

After a month of continuous US-Israeli bombardment, Washington says it has struck around 11,000 targets inside Iran. Israel, for its part, has carried out more than 4,000 strikes using its most advanced weapons.

If Gulf states, with relatively small armies, were to join, what would they add to this scale of destruction?

Their choice, so far, has been clear: to rely on American military power alone.

This is reflected in the steady stream of posts by Dahi Khalfan, a figure close to the UAE government. He wrote bluntly: “This war has proven that Western countries are the true friends, and those we call brothers are, in reality, estranged from us—except for the monarchies that align with us and share our sentiments.”

He added: “We do not buy our weapons from Arab countries. Our essential needs are not found among those who call themselves Arabs. Our needs lie with the advanced nations that possess the tools of the modern age.”

He ended with stark advice: “People of the Gulf—strengthen cooperation with Israel. This is advice. There is no good at all in the countries of the region.”

No gap in official coordination

As the war enters its second month, reports in American newspapers and global news agencies suggest Israel is not alone in urging Trump to press on until the Iranian regime is exhausted, or even toppled.

Leaders in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in particular, appear to favor that outcome. They fear that ending the war abruptly would leave them permanently exposed to Iranian missiles and drones, especially after Iran has shown it will use them.

Iran, for its part, knows it cannot defeat the United States and Israel militarily. But it can force Washington to reconsider if the entire oil-rich Gulf ignites if US bases are struck and global markets unravel.

Israel, meanwhile, has little stake in whether the Gulf burns, or whether Iran collapses into chaos, so long as it emerges victorious and entrenches its dominance for decades.

Within this tangled landscape, it is inaccurate to suggest Egypt’s official position has fallen short.

When Emirati political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdullah complained that no Arab defense minister had visited his country, while Abu Dhabi hosted the French defense minister, he seemed to overlook how decisions are made in Egypt.

The Egyptian president, who visited the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia last week amid wartime conditions, is also the supreme commander of the armed forces. He issues the orders.

There is, therefore, no meaningful gap in coordination between Egypt and Gulf leadership. Nor is it credible to claim that Egypt’s recent diplomatic efforts—carried out with Turkey and Pakistan—are unfolding without the knowledge of key Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar.

What appears to unsettle some Gulf commentators more than official policy is Egyptian public sentiment.

Many Egyptians lean toward supporting Iran, not as an endorsement of its attacks on Gulf states, where millions of Egyptians live and work, but as a stance rooted in its confrontation with the United States and Israel.

That distinction is often ignored. What is being expressed is not alignment with Iran, but rejection of a broader political reality—one shaped by Israel’s unchecked power and its continued military aggression in the region.

For many Egyptians, it is instinctive to sympathize with any force capable of inflicting damage on Netanyahu’s far-right government and restraining its expansionist ambitions, especially in the wake of Israel’s devastating war of extermination against Palestinians in Gaza.

Yet this emotional impulse does not translate into a desire for escalation.

The overriding priority, for Egyptians and for the region as a whole, is for this war to end.

It is a war that harms everyone. Gulf states stand on its front lines, exposed to direct retaliation. Egypt, too, bears the consequences economically, politically and socially.

The only clear beneficiary is Benjamin Netanyahu, a leader facing internal crises who finds in war a means of survival and expansion.

If President Trump is drawn to swift victories and decisive outcomes, the region offers no such clarity. Its history resists shortcuts, and its conflicts rarely conclude on command.

Wars here linger, mutate and return.

What remains constant is the need for sustained coordination between Egypt and its Gulf partners—coordination grounded not in fleeting alignments or external pressures, but in a sober understanding of shared interests.

At the center of those interests lies a simple premise: stability cannot be built on the expansion of conflict, nor on the normalization of an Israeli dominance that comes at the expense of the region itself.