The world needs mediators. As long as war remains a defining feature of humanity, peace deals can try to be reached with the help of third parties who can successfully facilitate communication between belligerents. For many years Oman successfully served as such a mediator and performed valuable services behind the scenes that were well appreciated in Washington and other foreign capitals.
But the quality of Oman’s mediation efforts has sharply deteriorated as of late. Nowhere has this been more plainly evident than in Muscat’s recent diplomacy that failed on four fronts: it didn’t prevent this war, it deeply damaged Oman’s relations with the United States, it isolated Oman from many of its Gulf neighbors, and it even failed to shield Oman from becoming one of the targets of Iranian military attacks. It’s rare to see a diplomatic initiative misfire so comprehensively.
In the months ahead, Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said should work to understand how Oman allowed itself to be in this position and should seek to return to the foreign policy and mediation strategies that were employed successfully by his predecessor. In the immediate term, he should understand the first law of holes: when you find yourself in a deep one, stop digging.
Lots of governments try their hand at mediation, but few are successful. Those who are generally come in two categories: “Big and Loud” or “Small and Quiet.” Global superpowers and regional hegemons can be successful mediators because they possess the power to compel one or both sides into agreement and to enforce compliance after the fact. “Big and Loud” mediators don’t have to be completely impartial — indeed, an open preference for one side can be valuable when that power then compels its junior partner to submit to an agreement it would otherwise not accept — but they do have to be trusted by both sides. “Big and Loud” mediators tend to fail when they lose that trust or, because of their inherent ability to project power, mistakenly decide to become a belligerent themselves in the conflict in question.
“Small and Quiet” mediators often are more successful, precisely because they are viewed as impartial, trustworthy, and, perhaps most critically, discreet. They tend to be relatively wealthy nations, because successful mediation requires significant resources, not the least of which is used to build a cadre of diplomatic professionals with the requisite personal expertise, networks, and earned confidence. When this type of mediator fails it is typically because their actions convince others that they have become partial, unreliable, indiscreet — and loud. In the lead up to this war, Oman made all of these mistakes.
It wasn’t always this way. Oman’s special relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran has long placed it in a special position to mediate between the United States and the Iranian regime. The late Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said traced his relationship with Iran to the Shah’s intervention, along with Great Britain, in support of Qaboos’ successful war to crush the South Yemeni and Chinese-supported Dhofar insurgency in the early 1970s. After the Islamic revolution brought down the Shah, Qaboos continued to reach out to the new revolutionary regime in Tehran, eventually winning their confidence in his value as a channel to the rest of the Gulf states as well as the West. Yet Qaboos did not harbor illusions about the nature of the Iranian regime. His “friend to all, enemy to none,” foreign policy masked his clear prioritization of Oman’s relations with the United Kingdom and the United States.
Oman’s first real opportunity to mediate between the United States and Iran came in the form of three young American hikers on vacation in Iraqi Kurdistan who were arrested in July 2009 for allegedly crossing the Iranian border and held on false charges of espionage. Over a two year period, representatives of Sultan Qaboos mediated their release, including the payment of substantial cash bonds to the Iranians by the Sultan. Oman’s success in arranging the hikers’ release led to further U.S.-Omani conversations about the potential role for Oman in opening a secret Iranian-U.S. dialogue, at the time a key strategic goal of President Obama and his administration.
In 2012 and 2013, at the request of the United States, the Omanis arranged the first direct discussions, secretly held in Muscat, between U.S. and Iranian representatives about Iran’s nuclear program. By the time these discussions became public, Secretary of State John Kerry had already conveyed the willingness of the Obama administration to accept Iran’s enrichment of uranium to a limited level, a point that previous U.S. administrations had consistently rejected. By July 2015, the negotiations produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, widely termed “the Iran nuclear deal.”
Oman’s role behind the scenes should not be underestimated, even though the Omanis were not involved in the eventual substance of the negotiations. The Omanis hosted and helped conceal the initial U.S.-Iranian engagements, much to the chagrin of Oman’s Gulf neighbors as well as Israel. Sultan Qaboos provided the Americans with his assessment of Iranian intentions and facilitated the delivery of a series of messages from President Obama to Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. By the end of 2016, Sultan Qaboos expressed his conviction that so-called regime “reformers” such as President Rouhani would be able gradually to move Iran away from its aggressive policies toward its Gulf neighbors and possibly even Israel. Throughout this period, Oman’s role was that of the “quiet mediator,” opening channels and facilitating dialogue without seeking a high profile in the substance of the issues.
During the end of the Obama administration and continuing into the first Trump administration, Oman proved helpful with other mediations, in particular with the Houthis in Yemen. Oman remained officially neutral in the Yemen war, yet gradually came to see itself as a mediator with the Houthis, who were invited to establish an office in Muscat. Oman was able to leverage its relationship with the Houthis to arrange the release, over a period of several years, of at least ten American citizens who had been seized and held hostage by the Houthis in Sanaa.
Although there were multiple reports that the Houthis took advantage of the hostage release flights to smuggle people and equipment into Yemen, the Omanis deserve credit for their successful efforts to secure the release and safe transport of these American citizens. In playing this role, Oman remained a low-key partner that did not seek the limelight for its role, although behind the scenes the Omani-Houthi relationship developed problematic aspects, especially from the point of view of Oman’s Saudi and Emirati neighbors. The Houthis’ primary external patron, Iran, certainly benefited from the safe haven and good offices Oman provided to the Houthis. Yet from the perspective of both the Obama team and the first Trump administration, the safe release of unjustly detained Americans remained the priority, despite at times severe discomfort over the emerging Omani-Iranian-Houthi cooperation.
Before Sultan Qaboos died in January 2020 and was succeeded by his cousin, Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, he began to sour on the prospects of a “reformed” Iranian regime. While the Omanis were not happy about President Trump’s first term “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, they generally complied with U.S. sanctions on Iranian entities and even appreciated the logic of the various forms of pressure, including a large U.S. naval buildup in the summer of 2019, intended to deter Iran’s attacks on international shipping. The cooperation on that front, including hosting and supporting the U.S. Navy deployments in Oman’s southern ports of Duqm and Salala, was concrete and valuable.
In the lead-up to the war with Iran, Oman once again served as Iran’s preferred mediator with the United States. Oman hosted the first discussions in Muscat in April 2025, and continued as mediator at subsequent sessions in Rome and Geneva. Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi engaged personally with both the American and Iranian delegations and repeatedly made public statements declaring progress in the negotiations, as well as repeated assurances of Iran’s flexibility and good intentions. In doing so, he went beyond the traditional Omani role of maintaining a low profile and preserving Oman’s traditional prioritization of its relationship with the United States. This may be why Iran reportedly insisted on moving the February negotiations with the U.S. from Istanbul to Muscat.
Iran’s preference for Omani mediation proved wise from Tehran’s perspective, when on the eve of the war, Minister Albusaidi took the extraordinary step of going on American television to claim that “a peace deal is in our reach” — in effect lobbying the U.S. public against the decision to go to war by repeating Iranian talking points. That war was launched only hours later and we now know that President Trump gave the order to authorize the war (at 3:38 pm eastern) very shortly before Minister Albusaidi went on the air. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the U.S. policy, this was a highly unusual action for a “Small and Quiet” mediator to take. Just as many Democrats remain justifiably angry at Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu coming to Washington to lobby publicly against Obama’s decision to make a nuclear deal with Iran, many Republicans remain justifiably angry at the Omani Foreign Minister for lobbying publicly against US policy.
Iran then struck targets in Oman, repeatedly. These strikes happened both before and after non-credible public claims by both the Iranian foreign minister and its armed forces that no such attacks on Oman were taking place or that the Iranian government itself bore no responsibility for rogue military elements operating on their own accord. After seeming to accept these Iranian claims at face value and “congratulating” the new Iranian supreme leader on his elevation, Albusaidi then doubled down by publishing a piece for the Economist in which he not-so-subtly blamed Israel for the war, claiming that “this is not America’s war” and that “for Israel to achieve its stated objective will require a long military campaign to which America would have to commit troops on the ground.”
Albusaidi also wrote that Iran’s daily ballistic missile and drone attacks across the Gulf were “perhaps the only rational option available.” Oman was then absent from the joint Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-plus Jordan meetings organized to condemn Iran’s blatant and deadly attacks on its neighbors. In early April, Iran floated the idea of joint Iranian-Omani management of the Strait of Hormuz. Although Oman publicly rejected this Iranian proposal, the Omani deputy foreign minister visited Tehran on April 6 to hold direct discussions with his Iranian counterpart, making Oman the sole GCC state to send an official to Tehran since the war began. As a result, when President Trump spoke to the nation on the war, he noted that he wanted to thank “our allies in the Middle East: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain” — only one GCC was intentionally absent from that list, Oman.
Despite the negative reactions toward Oman’s solicitous attitude toward Iran, on April 25 Sultan Haitham and Foreign Minister Albusaidi hosted Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Muscat following Araghchi’s visits to Islamabad and before he went to Moscow. In doing so, Oman became the only GCC state to receive a senior Iranian official in person; Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE all held telephone conversations with Araghchi, but all at the foreign ministerial level and not in person. Agreeing to a meeting with the Sultan went even further in terms of conveying Oman’s continued acceptance of normal diplomatic engagement with the Iranian regime, even following an estimated 6,400 Iranian drone and ballistic missiles attacks on Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors, as well as Jordan. As if to underscore its continued openness to Iran, Oman was the sole GCC state that did not attend the GCC Consultative Summit held in Jeddah April 28 to coordinate Gulf response to Iran’s aggression.
Undermining its role as an effective mediator, separating itself from its Gulf neighbors, angering the U.S., and cozying up to Iran — this all can’t end well for Oman. Indeed, this new diplomacy seems to have only provided one benefit, that of shining a bright international spotlight on the foreign minister. Sultan Haithem bin Tariq will have to decide if this new Omani diplomatic experiment should continue. A possible alternate model was provided by Pakistan when, on the eve of the U.S.-Iranian negotiations in Islamabad April 11-12, the Pakistani government took down an X post by Defense Minister Khawaja Asif in which he called Israel “evil,” and a “curse for humanity.” While such views may be widely held in Pakistan, the Pakistani government recognized that a senior official making such a statement on social media was incompatible with their role as mediator. Oman and the region would be better off if Sultan Haitham orders a return to a more traditional “Small and Quiet” brand of mediation and diplomacy.
