OP deliberately posted paywalled article. From what I can gather, the article is based on quotes from a few selected individuals, Sultan al-Jaber, the U.A.E. Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and CEO of ADNOC, Majed al Ansari, an adviser to Qatar’s prime minister, and an unamed Gulf official. Its possibly a bit of a stretch to take 3 sources, only one of which holds any kind of portfolio in government, and imply there is a change in national policy towards Iran. None of these states are in any way a democracy. At best, you can call them, on the surface, benign dictatorships. All of them have secret police. Bahrain came closest to a parliament, but as soon as it starts disagreeing with the King, it always gets shut down. My old class mate is now Prime Minister. During the Bahraini crackdowns ~10-12 years ago, I had hoped that he would take a break from the past, because I thought I knew him. Ultimately, he was beholden to tradition, and no better than his old man. I suspect none of these states want the Islamic Republic to be replaced by a democratic, secular republic, which would seriously challenge their continued existence. But economic turmoil affects their ability to ship their hypercars to London for the summer. They lead states where the locals are given non-jobs and free stuff, where the workforce is a mixture of flight-risk Western expats and sullen, essentially indentured Asian workers (with passports taken off them). They won the resource lottery; the Bedu arabs have contributed nothing culturally to the Islamic world, unlike the Iraqis, the Egyptians, the Persians. Historically, they were uneducated, illiterate peasants. What they want the Islamic Republic replaced by is something that the West doesn't want; we don't want a failed Iranian state. There are too many countries in that region like that. In the end, only the opinions of the Kings and Amirs count, not these quotes of basically commoners. When the Americans have gone, Iran will be still there, outnumbering the Gulf Arabs and Saudis by 2 to 1. They will need to come to an accomodation with Iran one way of another.
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