The United Arab Emirates and Qatar have been conducting private outreach to allied governments to press for an off-ramp in U.S. military operations aimed at Iran that would be kept short, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.
Those involved in the outreach are attempting to assemble a broad international coalition to press for a swift diplomatic resolution. The Gulf states' objective, as described by the sources, is to avoid escalation across the region and to blunt the risk of a sustained energy price shock that could follow prolonged hostilities.
People who described the effort requested anonymity when discussing sensitive conversations and assessments that have not been publicly disclosed. Their accounts indicate the outreach is happening privately rather than through public statements.
A specific assessment provided by Qatari officials to other parties warned that if shipping lanes in the area remain severely disrupted by the middle of the week, market responses could be larger for natural gas prices than the sharp spike seen on Monday. That assessment was shared with other officials and cited by the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The outreach from the UAE and Qatar underscores a coordinated diplomatic push to limit the duration and scope of military operations, with an explicit aim of reducing the chance of a broader regional confrontation and the downstream effects on energy and transport routes.
Details about which allied governments have been contacted, or the specific channels used for the lobbying, were not disclosed by the people who spoke. The sources emphasized the confidential nature of the consultations and framed their efforts as preventive measures intended to stabilize markets and shipping corridors.
Their warnings highlight how disruptions to maritime transit and related logistics could feed through into commodity markets, particularly natural gas, if uncertainty persists and shipping remains seriously curtailed.