{"id":365,"date":"2026-05-28T13:04:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/?p=365"},"modified":"2026-05-28T13:04:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:04:31","slug":"us-oman-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/2026\/05\/28\/us-oman-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"US OMAN relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Why Trump\u2019s threats against Oman are so bizarre<\/h2>\n
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By\u00a0Abbas Al Lawati<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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\"President<\/picture><\/div>\n
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President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, on Wednesday, May 27<\/span><\/div>\n

Jacquelyn Martin\/AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

US President Donald Trump\u2019s threat to \u201cblow up\u201d Oman baffled observers\u00a0across the political spectrum<\/a>\u00a0in Washington, targeting one of America\u2019s oldest Arab allies.<\/p>\n

Oman is the longest continuously independent state in the Arab world and was the first Gulf Arab country to formalize relations with the United States in 1833. For the past 15 years, Muscat has negotiated\u00a0prisoner releases<\/a>\u00a0with Iran on Washington\u2019s behalf and hosted backchannel talks between the two adversaries. Amid Cold War tensions and in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution, Oman became the first Gulf state to seal a\u00a0military access agreement<\/a>\u00a0with the US in 1980.<\/p>\n

Dubbed the \u201cSwitzerland of the Middle East,\u201d Muscat has long pursued a fiercely independent foreign policy shaped by its history and geography. Its strategic location on the Arabian Sea and partial control of the Strait of Hormuz helped make it a regional power in the 19th century, with one of the area\u2019s most formidable navies. But its position also exposed it to repeated invasions and interference from regional powers, including the Persians and the Saudis, as well as foreign-backed insurgencies at home.<\/p>\n

Muscat\u2019s relations with Iran were historically cordial but cautious. Unlike some neighboring Gulf states that became hubs for Iranian business and migration, Oman maintained a quieter relationship with Tehran focused largely on diplomacy, helping turn the country into a trusted intermediary between the two adversaries.<\/p>\n

But Oman\u2019s delicate balancing act became more complicated this year. One day before the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February, Omani Foreign Minister Sayyed Badr Albusaidi \u2013 who had been mediating talks between Tehran and Washington \u2013\u00a0appeared on American television<\/a>\u00a0insisting that negotiations had made \u201csubstantial progress\u201d and that a deal was \u201cwithin reach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the conflict began, Oman has emerged as one of the region\u2019s strongest critics of the war, with Albusaidi warning that Washington had \u201clost control of its own foreign policy\u201d<\/a>. Throughout the fighting, Muscat remained engaged with Iran, the US and regional powers in efforts to revive diplomacy, even as strikes linked to the war hit Omani territory \u2013 making Trump\u2019s public threats against Oman all the more extraordinary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why Trump\u2019s threats against Oman are so bizarre By\u00a0Abbas Al Lawati President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, on Wednesday, May 27 Jacquelyn Martin\/AP US…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":358,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shahed.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}