Over the past week, the uncertainty over potential US military action against Iran has continued to shape strategic steps across the region.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both close US allies who also maintain ties with Tehran, said they won’t allow their airspace be used for any attack, regardless of the origin.
Egypt’s foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty — whose country has thawed ties with Iran but is yet to reach a full diplomatic level — spoke with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi as well as with US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff to “work toward achieving calm, in order to avoid the region slipping into new cycles of instability.”
Meanwhile, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and some 10 US guided missile destroyers, capable of launching attacks from the sea, has arrived in the region, as noted by shipping tracking site MarineTraffic.
The Iranian state-owned news media organization Press TV announced that beginning next week, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard naval forces will start live-fire exercises in the same waters, the Strait of Hormuz, which links Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations, meanwhile, posted on X that “Iran stands ready for dialogue based on mutual respect and interests — BUT IF PUSHED, IT WILL DEFEND ITSELF AND RESPOND LIKE NEVER BEFORE!”
In line with that, Ali Shamkhani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, wrote on X that a “‘limited strike’ is an illusion.”
He stated that “any military action by the United States — from any origin and at any level — would be considered an act of war and the response would be immediate, all out, and unprecedented, targeting the heart of Tel Aviv and all those supporting the aggressor.”
For Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House, the latest decisions by US President Donald Trump indicate that economic relief and reintegration remain possible, “but only after Iran accepts permanent and verifiable constraints on its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes alongside shifts in its regional behaviour,” she wrote in an op-ed on the think tank’s website.
Tehran has rolled out new anti-US billboards in response to the rising tensions Image: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/picture alliance
Israel has not yet built its defenses back up
Tensions between the US and Iran have been mounting since Tehran’s brutal crackdown on protesters beginning in December 2025. According to the latest tally by the US-based Human Rights Activists in Iran, 6,479 deaths have been confirmed, including 6,092 protesters and 118 children (as of Friday night, January 30). More than 42,450 people have been arrested, the NGO said.
According to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the country’s archenemies, the United States and Israel, are responsible for the unrest.
For Israel, a potential US strike risks an Iranian counterstrike on its territory, said Pauline Raabe, a political scientist at the Berlin-based Middle East Minds think tank.
“Against the background of the upcoming elections in Israel, the Israeli government supports the current call for moderation,” she told DW.
Following the Hamas terror attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, the ensuing two-year war in Gaza and the 12-day-war in June 2025 between Israel and Iran, during which the US carried out strikes on nuclear targets across Iran, Israel is yet to rebuild the full scope of its defense mechanisms, Raabe added.
Mairav Zonszein, senior analyst on Israel with the International Crisis Group, an independent organization working to prevent wars, confirmed this observation.
“Missile interceptors have not been replenished enough,” she said. Despite this, Zonszein doesn’t believe Israel could tell Trump to not strike Iran.
“And yet, there are different factors as to why I think right now such a strike would not be ideal for Israel,” she told DW.
For years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been sounding the alarm over the threat of Iran’s nuclear weapons.
“But Israeli officials would be happy with a deal that resembles the Libyan model,” which involved Libya abolishing its nuclear program, Zonszein said.
Also, in her view, it is no secret that Israel supports a regime change in Tehran.
“But for now, Israel is just making sure that it’s prepared for whatever Trump will decide,” she said.
Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman is aiming to decrease tensions between Donald Trump’s US and IranImage: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Mounting concerns in Gulf states
The political strategy of the other regional neighbors in the Gulf is meanwhile driven by different interests, Eckart Woertz, director of the German Institute of International and Security Affairs (GIGA) in Hamburg, told DW earlier this month.
“The Gulf states have a vested interest in maintaining stability in the region even by means of authoritarian structures,” he said, adding that the political elite of the Gulf states apparently prefers to rely on the familiar old regime rather than getting involved with a new, potentially unknown faction.
Raabe in turn believes that Gulf states will continue to exert maximal diplomatic pressure on both sides as they fear that violence could spiral out of control as a result of an attack.
“It could mean that they themselves could become targets of Iranian attacks,” Raabe said, noting that the US bases in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain could be among the first targets of possible Iranian airstrikes. “This worries the Gulf states as they would have war in their own backyard.”
Analysts say economic relief and reintegration remain possible for Iran. But as of right now, with the USS Abraham Lincoln (seen here in 2012) on the way toward Iran, the situation remains tenseImage: Eric S. Powell/ABACA/picture alliance
Rising nuclear threat
All of these concerns across the region are further fueled by the fact that talks over a potential nuclear deal between Washington and Tehran have stalled.
On Wednesday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he hopes that Iran will quickly “Come to the Table” to negotiate “a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties” and that “Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!”
As of now, it remains unclear what such a deal would entail.
Previous negotiation points included banning Iran from independently enriching uranium and restricting the production of long-range ballistic missiles. The concern: that these missiles could be made available to Iran’s armed proxy groups, which are widely labeled as terror organizations, in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Gaza.
Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear program was civilian. Yet enrichment levels are pointing to the opposite, according to multiple official reports.
Edited by: Carla Bleiker
