ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
All eyes will be on Oman this Monday. That's where officials from Gulf countries and Iran are expected to meet in an effort to make progress towards reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The flow of oil through the key waterway has continued to be choked, taking a toll on the global economy. Also, fighting in the region is heating up yet again. The U.S. will notably not be present in the meeting in Oman. So what does that absence from the talks say about American leadership in the region? That's one of the questions I'd like to put to Dania Thafer. She's the executive director of the Washington-based think tank Gulf International Forum, and she joins us from Doha, Qatar. Welcome to the program.
DANIA THAFER: Thank you very much, Elissa, for having me.
NADWORNY: So what are we to make of the U.S.'s absence at this meeting? I mean, should we interpret this as America essentially taking a back seat on efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz?
THAFER: I think we should interpret this as the region trying to find a solution that can be workable for both parties, the U.S. and Iran, and of course the Gulf States as the third party. But of course, if decisions are going to be made about the Strait of Hormuz that is against U.S. interests, I think that would really be a pun (ph) to Washington. However, the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which - Bahrain will be absent from this meeting, so five of them certainly will not go completely against U.S. interests. So I think there would be buy-in from Washington. And the way they're framing this meeting moving forward seems a lot like the agreement that was in the original MOU agreement, Article 5, stating that Oman and Iran would decide how they would divide the passageways of the Strait of Hormuz with buy-in from the regional states, the GCC states, and Iraq.
NADWORNY: And, Dania, the MOU, you mentioned, that's the memorandum of understanding that was reached between the U.S. and Iran earlier this summer, which fell through, right?
THAFER: Yes, that is correct. So it seems like it's kind of going in that direction. Now, depending how Washington interprets whatever agreement comes out of this, this could be a face-saving way for Washington to put an end to this conflict. But I will say this meeting is a consultation. Iran said this is a consultation, and Iran is basically going to share a proposal with four of the Gulf States that supposedly Iran and Arman agreed on, then I think they will take it from there. And they made it explicitly clear, whatever the outcome is is completely dependent on Washington's behavior. So still, Washington is having an indirect vote at the table.
NADWORNY: Even if they're not there.
THAFER: Right.
NADWORNY: Yeah. How would you characterize the interests of the Gulf States going into the meeting?
THAFER: Well, right now, the stakes are very high for the Gulf States, not necessarily when it comes to just the Strait of Hormuz, to tensions region-wide. I mean, as you may know, Saudi Arabia just had its pipeline attacked and it's offline. That was the pipeline that was used to go around the Strait of Hormuz. And that was the workaround for hydrocarbon resources, specifically oil, through the Red Sea. So the stakes are quite high when it comes to the Gulf States' interests. But of course, there are countries who are locked in the Strait of Hormuz who have paid the highest price in this war, specifically Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. So in some ways, the Strait of Hormuz can be viewed as an existential issue, especially when it comes to their economic longevity, and the most urgent matter for their long-term security.
NADWORNY: What does Iran's vision for a deal look like? Like, what are their key demands?
THAFER: Well, Iran sees the Strait of Hormuz as its key leverage on the U.S. and on the international community and also its form of deterrence in this war. They found that being able to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz in some ways is more dangerous than having a nuclear weapon. And so I think from the Iranian perspective, they want to create a deterrence that this will never happen again to them, that they would never be attacked. So I think that is one of their goals. Their second goal is to have dominance in the region, and that's been Iran's long-standing goal. And so, Strait of Hormuz is part of that equation.
NADWORNY: I want to zoom out now. The Iran-backed Houthi militia has made significant military gains in Yemen recently, which has caused some additional worry about the flow of oil from the region. Can you explain why?
THAFER: Yes. The events over the last day or so in Yemen are very concerning for energy security and oil security specifically coming out of Saudi Arabia because the one workaround that the Gulf States had and that Saudi Arabia had to sell its oil was through the Red Sea and through the Bab al-Mandab. What happened was that the Houthis have been able to take over coastal areas and an island right in the middle of Bab al-Mandab, which gives it huge strategic leverage over what comes in and out of this choke point of Bab al-Mandab. So this is extremely costly to Saudi Arabia and for the energy markets globally.
NADWORNY: Do you think something substantive is likely to come out of the meeting in Oman?
THAFER: I don't think we're going to find a full-fledged agreement coming out. That would be ideal and great. But, you know, it would have to go back to Washington, and they would have to come to an agreement with Washington in order for this to move forward. And the Iranians have made it clear that as long as the U.S. is continuing its blockade on Iranian oil, which is happening right now, that there's going to be no really substantial agreement about the Strait of Hormuz. So I don't think it's going to fix everything overnight, but it could be the start of a process.
NADWORNY: That was Dania Thafer speaking to us from Doha, Qatar. She is the executive director of the Gulf International Forum, a Washington-based think tank. Thank you so much for talking with us.
THAFER: Thank you so much for having me, Elissa.
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