🇮🇷🇸🇦🇺🇸 Why hasn’t Iran struck first? Because every missile it fires at the Gulf pushes the Arabs back into Washington’s arms Joshua Landis, who runs Middle East studies at the University of Oklahoma, says the Tehran meeting with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey is the prize Iran wants most, and it can’t win it while hitting the people it’s courting: “The more Iran attacks them, the more angry Gulf Arabs are going to become against Iran, and the harder it is to reach some kind of diplomatic solution.” Joshua says the Gulf states are now talking revenue sharing with Iran to reopen shipping, which would be Washington’s nightmare, so Israel and the US have every reason to keep hitting Iran and force the retaliation that scares the Arabs back to buying American weapons. Which means: the next round of strikes isn’t aimed only at Iran. It’s aimed at the deal the Gulf is trying to cut without us. @joshua_landis @WeTheBrandon