Andrew Dowell

I think the other thing is they're probably aware that President Trump is trying to assemble a coalition and they want to help make that happen because the goal of any effort to restore traffic through the Strait and remove Iran's role of governing that traffic is very much in their interest.

I think one of the bets is probably that as international pressure builds, Iran's position and its claim that it will have a permanent role over traffic industry becomes less and less tenable in international diplomatic terms.

But, you know, in a strictly military consideration, it's a big job.

Andrew Dowell is The Wall Street Journal's Middle East editor.

The Gulf's a little bit of two minds here.

They've obviously been hurt very badly by the war, and they don't want it to continue.

By the same token, they don't want it to end where Iran is in.

for lack of a better phrase, a position of power, certainly where Iran has more influence over the crucial Strait of Hormuz waterway than it had coming into the war.

So in the background, the Gulf is pressing the U.S.

very hard to keep going and finish the job so that Iran doesn't come out of this still able to pose a threat.

On the other hand, they are participating in the process with talks to make sure that they head in the right direction, and also just because they do eventually want an end to the war, and obviously diplomacy will have to be a part of that.

It's difficult from the outside to measure that progress just because the goals that he'd set are pretty expansive and difficult to track.

So the administration's made clear they want to make sure that Iran doesn't ever get a nuclear weapon.

They've also talked about

limiting their production of ballistic missiles, and even make clear that they want the people of Iran to rise up and overthrow the regime.

So the U.S.

and Israel went hard at Iran's leadership at the beginning of the conflict.

They've killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a number of other

top military and political figures.

They've hit missile sites around the country.