The Return of Middle-Power Diplomacy in the Gulf

In the wake of the 2025 attack on the Iranian nuclear program, the former director of the Middle East Institute (MEI), John Calabrase, warned that geopolitical, regional, and economic factors “render the Gulf states exceptionally vulnerable to any escalation between Israel and Iran.” Despite its limited goals, Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. stealth bomber raids on Iran’s nuclear sites, led to disruptions in Gulf shipping, reprisals by Iran, and a spike in global oil prices.  

The Gulf states are now yoked to a global conflict whose military, economic, and political repercussions are being felt across the region and world. Despite being in the cross-hairs of this conflict, they possess limited leverage. Their security and economic systems remain deeply intertwined with a complex constellation of major external powers—including the United States, Israel, China, and Russia—whose strategic priorities override regional interests. At the same time, persistent intra-Gulf divisions, divergent threat perceptions, especially in regard to Iran, and competing national interests undermine the possibility of coordinated regional action.

In the current environment, middle powers outside of the Middle East also appear largely sidelined, with few mechanisms or platforms through which they can meaningfully influence the trajectory of the crisis or support Gulf states in shaping non-military pathways forward. 

The Return of Middle-Power Diplomacy

In his Davos speech, Carney warned of a harsher geopolitical order taking shape: “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” However, Carney also underscored how hegemonic powers depend on the compliance of allies and partners.

Carney himself may have slipped back into such dutiful rituals of compliance when his initial response to the U.S.-Israel military assault was to signal his “support with regret.” If there were a crisis that requires charting courageous new pathways forward for middle powers, it would be the current conflict and its global destructive impact. Curiously, while the key players and coalitions are very different, the current conflict does bear a few uncanny resemblances to an earlier Middle East crisis.  

The Forgotten Lesson of Suez

Seventy years ago (1956), with economic and military support from the Soviet Union, Egypt was positioned as a rising power in the Middle East and Israel’s major military threat.  Its decision to nationalize, control, and impose tolls on the world’s major oil shipping route through the Suez Canal sparked a geopolitical crisis. Western powers—Britain and France—aligned with Israel to launch a military attack on Egypt. In this context, the U.S. was resisting military intervention and pushing for a peaceful diplomatic resolution.  The Suez crisis precipitated the most serious division within the NATO alliance since its birth.   

Canada, a minor middle power with no meaningful connection to these Middle East stakeholders, initially stood on the sidelines, caught between the tensions of the U.S. and other key NATO allies. However, under the leadership of Lester B. Pearson, Canada took a decisive turn and demonstrated how a middle power could create new pathways when major powers were locked into military engagement. 

Rather than aligning Canada with the powers in armed conflict, he spearheaded a new initiative—the UN Emergency Force—that facilitated a peace-keeping path that pushed the belligerents to step back from further escalation. In today’s context, when regional actors face severe constraints and military superpowers dominate, the story of the Suez raises the question of whether some understated Canadian courage and ingenuity could help to open new pathways for middle powers that seem closed in this current crisis. 

A New Opening for Gulf Cooperation

The current crisis has also intensified debates around regional agency and the long-term sustainability of external security dependence in the Gulf. Today, the Gulf is at a genuine inflection point, inviting a fundamental reassessment of its longstanding dependence on major powerbrokers.  Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a regionally inclusive organisation, has been signalling its receptivity to wider collaborative initiatives. In 1988, it established a  joint cooperation agreement  with the European Union that underlined the importance of strategic partnerships that could address “serious threats to peace, security, and stability at the regional and international levels, as well as  the challenges that the global economy is facing.”  Individual GCC member states have played increasingly instrumental roles in mediation.  Qatar brokered the 2020 Doha Peace Agreement with the Taliban and mediation between Israel and Hamas. Saudi Arabia and the UAE facilitated prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and Russia. Gulf states clearly want to break free from their longstanding status as passive pieces for transactional deals brokered by great powers. 

Building New Institutional Pathways

Canada could contribute to providing additional diplomatic scaffolding to give Gulf states more agency as key stakeholders in a broader and more effective multilateral architecture of middle powers.  First, Canada could propose a standing middle power contact group on Gulf security, modeled on the original Suez formula but significantly expanded, drawing not only on the Gulf states and NATO middle powers, but also on the Asian and African middle powers most severely impacted by the serious economic impact of this crisis.  

The key innovation would be institutionalizing a consultation track that runs parallel to, but not in direct competition with, any of the major superpowers. Canada could offer the Gulf states a seasoned Western interlocutor with close but arms-length relations to the EU and the U.S.  Canada’s diplomatic expertise and experience offer intimate knowledge of the U.S. and European political landscapes, as well as hard-nosed realism regarding the increasingly acute liabilities of isolated dependence on the vagaries of US national interests.

Second, the GCC-EU Joint Council has committed to cooperating with international partners on another critical issue in the Middle East. The GCC and EU joint statement reaffirmed the importance of an independent, sovereign, and economically viable State of Palestine, a position endorsed by Canada. But declarations without financing architecture are empty.

Canada could announce a two-state implementation fund, capitalized by middle powers and Gulf sovereign wealth funds, dedicated to Palestinian institution-building, security sector reform, and economic infrastructure, while addressing security concerns for both Israelis and Palestinians.  This would not be a reconstruction charity, but a good-governance state-building investment. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar have both the financial capacity and the political motivation to fund such a vehicle. Canada could work to provide wider international commitment and support. This operationalizes the movement towards a two-state solution rather than simply re-endorsing it rhetorically.

The GCC-EU Joint Council has also signalled its commitment to contribute to the recovery and reconstruction of Gaza by building on the Arab-Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) reconstruction plan and the New York Declaration. A relatively untapped Canada-GCC Strategic Dialogue framework established in 2016 could be leveraged for more strategic engagement.   

Third, the first-ever UN Security Council presidential statement on UN-GCC cooperation called for strengthening institutional relations, particularly in addressing emerging threats and challenges to peace and security in the Gulf region. Canada has deep expertise in arms control verification from its Cold War experience with NATO and the CSCE process. Canada could propose a gulf security and transparency mechanism — a multilateral monitoring regime for the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea shipping lanes, staffed by middle powers under UN auspices. This initiative could directly leverage the historic Pearson precedent to address the current threat to global trade routes.

The masterstroke in 1956 was the invocation of the UN General Assembly’s  Uniting for Peace mechanism when the Security Council was deadlocked — convening an Emergency Special Session that gave Pearson the platform to propose UNEF. That same mechanism exists today but remains underused. Canada could work to forge a coalition of middle powers (with GCC, EU, OIC, ASEAN, and more broadly Asian, African, and Latin American states) to convene a new Emergency Special Session focused on grappling with the most pressing issues causing chaos in the Middle East, as well as massive economic ramifications for the middle powers across the globe, especially in the Southern hemisphere.

Pearson’s diplomacy throughout the Suez Crisis cemented Canada’s reputation as “a moderate, mediatory, middle power.” He carved out a razor’s edge of strategic common ground between angry allies and bitter enemies locked in conflict.  Canada’s mediating identity — trusted by the West, not feared by the Global South, and credible at the UN — is one of our global assets. The quiet brilliance of Pearson’s work in 1956 was his understanding that the crisis could only be resolved by changing the frame. He didn’t try to directly broker a peace between the power-brokers—Britain, France, Israel, and Egypt.  Instead, he spearheaded the creation of a new institutional frame that made the problem solvable by transforming its terms. The current moment is precisely the opening for a revival of this innovative role.

Given the impact of the Prime Minister’s Davos vision and the considerable international trust that he has built with middle powers through his international efforts, Canada faces a similar opportunity, not to mediate between global powers, but to help forge a new institutional architecture that could help to shift the strategic horizons and possibilities. The GCC states are pursuing multilateral collaboration; the OIC wants a reconstruction architecture. NATO middle powers want a way to be constructive without being complicit. Canada is positioned to provide exactly what none of these actors can provide for themselves. Canada has the diplomatic DNA and the global trust to help reshape the strategic horizon.