Oman’s Flipflopping on Iran Will Leave It Isolated in the Gulf

Even being targeted by Iranian drone strikes is not enough to stop Oman from hedging
and even trying to accommodate Tehran. While other Gulf states issued severe condemnations of attacks on their countries, Foreign Minister Badr al-Din al-Busaidi has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and a return to diplomacy. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed that the Iranian Revolutionary 
Guard Corps’s attacks on Oman were “not our choice” and suggested that some military units were acting independently. Yet, Iran continued its strikes into March 3, with multiple unmanned aircraft hitting infrastructure at Duqm and the Port of Salalah.

Oman Stands Alone in Condemning U.S.-Israeli Strikes on Iran 

Oman issued three separate statements lashing out at the United States and Israel at the outset of the war on February 28. The first condemned the U.S.-Israeli strikes without mentioning Iran’s retaliatory attacks on its Arab neighbors. The second broadened the language, condemning all strikes affecting the Arab states in addition to Iran. The third, finally, included an explicit condemnation of Iran’s 
attacks on the Arab states. 

Oman’s most powerful religious figure, Ahmad al-Khalili, long infamous for supporting Yemen’s terrorist Houthis, released statements backing Iran. “We condemn the treacherous Zionist-American aggression against Iran, and we call on Muslims and people of conscience around the world to stand against it,” he wrote. Al-Khalili also mourned the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and prayed that “God guides the Iranian strikes to hit deep” inside Israel. 

Oman’s Long Record of Enabling Tehran 

Oman has long functioned as a financial artery for Iran. At a February 3 meeting 
with Oman’s ambassador in Tehran, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref signaled the Islamic Republic’s desire to double bilateral trade from roughly 
$2.5 to $5 billion.

Muscat also plays host to a large Houthi office suspected of engaging in espionage and smuggling. Fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members suspect Oman of neglecting their concerns in favor of Iran and the Houthis. Oman is the only GCC member not governed according to Sunni Islam. Rather, its leaders belong to the Ibadi sect of Islam, whose adherents have sometimes felt bullied by Saudi Arabia, giving them sympathy with Shiites and smaller minority Islamic sects. 

The United States has given Oman latitude to pursue this ambivalent path partly because, like Qatar, the United States has found it to be a useful mediator. Then Secretary of State John Kerry credited the Omanis with helping secure the 2015 nuclear deal. More substantively, Oman has served for decades as a key intelligence and security partner to the United States. 

Oman Off Track but Still an Important Partner

Oman is no enemy of the GCC, or of the United States. Unlike Qatar, it is not seeking to harm the West. But it has gotten away with a neutrality that is part convenience, part cowardice, for too long. Its record as a mediator is desultory when one writes off the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as a failure. The May 2025 ceasefire between the United States and the Houthis did not even stop Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Oman’s only achievement, with Iran as with Yemen, has been to delay conflict. Meanwhile, it has fallen prey to Iranian and Houthi intimidation and bribery. 

Now is the right time for the United States to address these difficult issues with Muscat. The Omanis will be worried about the extent of their isolation now that the rest of the GCC has lined up against Iran, so American pressure is likely to deliver results. The United States should begin by insisting that the Houthi office in Muscat be closed entirely.  

Edmund Fitton-Brown is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Ahmad Sharawi is a senior research analyst. For more analysis from the authors, please subscribe HERE. Follow Edmund on X @EFittonBrown. Follow Ahmad on X @AhmadA_Sharawi. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.