In this episode we look at Oman. Recorded during a media briefing, Daniel J. Levy speaks with Marc Sievers, former US Ambassador to Oman, about the latest indirect US–Iran nuclear talks and why Oman so often sits at the centre of regional diplomacy. Sievers explains how Oman’s distinctive relationship with Iran developed from the Sultan Qaboos era, how it shaped backchannel engagement during the JCPOA years, and what changed under “maximum pressure” when the US withdrew from the deal.
Retired Ambassador Marc Sievers is now the Director of AJC Abu Dhabi: The Sidney Lerner Centre for Arab-Jewish Understanding. He served as a US diplomat for more than 30 years across the Middle East and North Africa, including postings in Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
Transcript
(This transcript has been automatically generated by AI — please excuse any potential errors.)
00:00:07:02 – 00:00:32:19
Daniel J Levy
Good morning and thank you for joining us. It is 11th of February 2026, and I am Daniel J Levy, programs manager at becomes the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. Friday last week saw the opening round of US-Iran negotiations, albeit in direct mediated by the Omani government in Muscat and join us today to discuss that as well as other related issues.
00:00:32:21 – 00:01:00:04
Daniel J Levy
As Marc Sievers, formerly America’s ambassador to Oman, serving in Muscat from 2016 to 2019, his other State Department postings in a 30-year career included Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. He’s currently the inaugural director of AJC Abu Dhabi, the Sidney Lerner Centre for Arab and Jewish Understanding. So, as we can see, incredibly valuable insights to offer on this.
00:01:00:04 – 00:01:04:03
Daniel J Levy
So, Marc, thank you for joining us and over to you.
00:01:04:05 – 00:01:36:24
Marc J Sievers
Yeah. Thank you. Daniel. Look, I’ve been I don’t speak Farsi. I’ve actually never been to Iran. I’ve always wanted to go. I am, I think of myself not as an Arabist, but as a middle East specialist. And Iran has always fascinated me. But my, personal knowledge is really the Arab world, Israel and Turkey. And, but I’ve had, engagement with the Iranians and with the Iranians, Iran issues.
00:01:37:01 – 00:02:10:17
Marc J Sievers
Really throughout my career, I started off, date myself, but I started off the week that Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, and one of my first, experiences of Washington was walking up Connecticut Avenue and watching on in, in the windows of some of the department stores, the TV screens with the, news of the American hostages, being released in Iran and flown, to Algeria.
00:02:10:19 – 00:02:43:05
Marc J Sievers
And so, you know, Iran has sort of been there in the background, and throughout my career, there were periods where American diplomats actually were approached by Iranian, diplomats. I’ve been to events in the Gulf where, I’ve had long conversations with Iranian, academic experts, think tanks, former, officials. But I’ve never had an official role of, you know, engaging with Iran.
00:02:43:05 – 00:03:40:00
Marc J Sievers
But I watch this, with great interest. There’s a lot of interest in y. Oman. People in various places have asked me what that’s about. Oman has a different attitude and a different relationship with Iran, I think, than the rest of the Gulf. Cutter there, there’s some similarities, but I think Oman is in some ways unique because it really goes back to, the Shah, at the time that, the late Sultan Qaboos, came to power, in, 1970, there was a, a growing insurgency in, the, the far province, southern, Oman bordering the, the, the Yemen border and,
00:03:40:02 – 00:04:15:07
Marc J Sievers
the British, who were the primary, supporters of, of the Omani, Royal, Sultanate, backed the, the young caboose against his father and, caboose developed a relationship with the Shah, and the Shah sent troops, to Oman to help, crush the rebellion. So did King Hussein of Jordan. But somehow, the relationship, with the Iranians really grew from there.
00:04:15:09 – 00:04:47:02
Marc J Sievers
Obviously there was an interruption with the Iranian revolution and the fall of the Shah, but I was told by very senior, Omani officials who’d been around at the time, that Sultan Qaboos made a great effort to reach out to the, the new regime in Iran and to, basically say that, he saw relations between states, not between regimes, that he was, quite willing to engage in, cooperated with, the Islamic Republic.
00:04:47:04 – 00:05:37:19
Marc J Sievers
And I think gradually, the Iranians saw value in that. So that relationship that began with the Shah continued with, Khomeini and, and with, the current supreme leader, Ali family, a and the Omanis, when I was there, were in a unique position because all of the rest of the Gulf states had followed Saudi Arabia in breaking relations, with Iran in early 2016, or maybe the end of 20, maybe it’s December 2015, when the Saudis, executed, a Shia cleric, in Saudi Arabia and mobs attacked, the, Saudi embassy in Tehran, I think one of their consulates as well.
00:05:37:21 – 00:06:11:17
Marc J Sievers
And Saudi Arabia broke relations with Iran. Rest of the Gulf followed suit. The Omanis did not, and they told me they felt that Oman was what they call the Gulf’s, window on Iran and that, this was a role and a function that, served everyone’s interests. In the period, the first couple of years, I was the first year I was there, I was, initially, nominated and confirmed by President Obama.
00:06:11:19 – 00:06:37:06
Marc J Sievers
The JCPoA had just come into effect that there were, a couple of issues, involving Oman. One was that the, Iranians there was a cap on the amount of heavy water they were allowed to retain in Iran, and they had excess heavy water, and they put it on tankers and had it sitting in in the Sea of Oman.
00:06:37:08 – 00:07:06:13
Marc J Sievers
And they got the Omanis to agree to agree with the support of the United States to take it to Oman and store it. I think basically on the beach in a properly inspected storage facility. That was one issue to bring them into compliance. And there was another issue about, Iranian funds and currency that was, frozen in Omani banks.
00:07:06:14 – 00:07:35:18
Marc J Sievers
And the Iranians wanted it back. I’m not quite sure how that was finally resolved. It dragged on for years, but in the after the first year of my, my, tenure as ambassador, Donald Trump was elected, to his first term, and I remained as ambassador, I think most of the career ambassadors did, with some exceptions, all of the, political appointees, left, when the transition from Obama to Trump took place.
00:07:35:18 – 00:08:15:22
Marc J Sievers
But I stayed, and the one of the first things I, I said this whole time, caboose well, he asked me, about, Trump’s policy toward Iran. What he should expect. And I said, it’s going to change. I can’t tell you exactly how, but it’s going to be quite different from President Obama’s policy, which, the Omanis, as you may recall, were kind of invested in because they had help set up the direct channel, between, the United States and Iran at the beginning of the JCPoA process.
00:08:15:24 – 00:08:43:24
Marc J Sievers
And, of course, that was turned out to be true. One of the more interesting issues I had to manage in and as ambassador was to explain to the Omanis how U.S. policy was changing and how we were, returning to a policy of, you know, maximum pressure. And then, of course, President Trump decided to withdraw from the JCPoA.
00:08:44:01 – 00:09:17:13
Marc J Sievers
I think they were kind of shocked, but they adapted to the new situation, and we were able to get them to be quite cooperative on, the enforcement of sanctions. That was an enormous change from, from the Obama administration, where the U.S. Treasury Department under Obama had assured, the Omanis, Omani businesspeople, money banks that it was perfectly okay to do, to do business with Iran and to work with the Iranian banks.
00:09:17:13 – 00:09:57:17
Marc J Sievers
And so forth. The Omanis were sceptical and cautious about it. And I think with good reason, because they probably anticipated that, if there was a, you know, a Trump administration that, that that, approach of, the Obama administration would change 180 degrees, which is exactly what happened. Throughout the early part of that period, there was, an Iranian ambassador, who was, a male one wore a very tall man and wore a black turban, and actually a very gracious fellow.
00:09:57:17 – 00:10:27:20
Marc J Sievers
And we would sort of do this little kabuki dance where, the Omanis would sit us next to each other in different events or across from each other, and we would both, make a point of saying hello and shaking hands. He spoke Arabic. I spoke Arabic with him. He had been in Saudi Arabia, for some years and then had retired and gone into business and was brought back, by the Iranian regime, to, to make him an ambassador to Oman.
00:10:27:22 – 00:10:55:01
Marc J Sievers
And the, Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Muscat often told me, look, you know, sooner or later, you’re going to own you are going to need, you, the Americans are going to need to talk to the Iranians directly. And we would be very happy if, that dialog began with you and the Iranian ambassador, to which I said, well, you know, that’s, that’s something that, I’m not in a position to decide.
00:10:55:01 – 00:11:22:09
Marc J Sievers
That’s up to, the Secretary of State and the president. And if I were so instructed, I would certainly be glad to do that. But of course, it didn’t happen. While I was, ambassador, I felt that, you know, there was a lot of tension. My last year as ambassador was 2019 nine, stayed until almost the end of the year before I, retired from government.
00:11:22:11 – 00:11:47:18
Marc J Sievers
And we saw a lot of, tension building up in the Arabian Sea and, you know, Oman is actually, located, south of the Persian Gulf, past the Strait of Hormuz. So, it’s actually the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea and not the not the Arabian Gulf or the Persian Gulf or whatever you want to call it.
00:11:47:20 – 00:12:10:08
Marc J Sievers
But there were, a series of, tankers sabotaged, off the coast of, Jebel Ali in the UAE, by the Iranians. There were some other ships that were seized on the high seas by the Iranians. And there was a naval build up, by the United States. Not to the same extent that I think we see today.
00:12:10:08 – 00:12:47:05
Marc J Sievers
But there was a, us Navy, carrier, aircraft carrier group, sailing around, the Sea of Oman and in preparation for some possible military confrontation. I remember very well there was, an unarmed American drone, unmanned drone, that was shot down over international waters, but close to, Iranian, airspace. And there was an expectation, that the United States would retaliate.
00:12:47:07 – 00:13:23:04
Marc J Sievers
All of the ambassadors in the region were asked to urgently come into the office for a secure telephone call, with the State Department, in which we were told to be prepared, that, a US strike is imminent. And then apparently, I don’t. I wasn’t in Washington. I don’t know exactly what happened, but President Trump called it off and it didn’t take place, around that time, I think actually after that, there was the Iranian, drone and missile strike on the Saudi Aramco.
00:13:23:06 – 00:13:52:15
Marc J Sievers
Refinery, in, Abqaiq, on the, the east coast of, of Saudi Arabia, the Iranians said that these were that the drones and missiles had come from, Iraq or from Yemen, but we were the United States had intelligence that clearly showed that, they came directly from Iran. And there are a lot of different, discussions about what happened at that point.
00:13:52:17 – 00:14:28:00
Marc J Sievers
But other than exposing that, that Iran was lying and the Security Council, there was no American retaliation and no Saudi retaliation. And I think that created, some distancing between the United States and, and Saudi Arabia at the time. I, I’ve heard that Secretary Pompeo went to the Saudis and, and told them that, the United States would support, retaliate, Saudi retaliatory strike and maybe do it jointly with them.
00:14:28:02 – 00:14:51:17
Marc J Sievers
And the Saudis said, no, at which point he said, well, then, you know, we’re not going to do it, unilaterally. I don’t know if that’s true. It’s interesting. I think it’s possible, even plausible. But I can’t say that that’s, for sure. That’s what happened. But in any case, it did not happen. The tensions reduced gradually somewhat after that.
00:14:51:19 – 00:15:24:12
Marc J Sievers
And, of course, shortly afterwards, you got a big shift in attention to Washington to, after I retired to the, to the Abraham Accords, which I continue to believe is a, a tremendous accomplishment of, of American diplomacy. At the end of President Trump’s first term, the signing of, normalization and, and full diplomatic relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, by her later.
00:15:24:12 – 00:15:53:05
Marc J Sievers
But almost right afterwards, Bahrain, and later, Morocco. And, finally, Sudan was never ratified and Sudan and the, the kind of coalition between civilian and military rule and Sudan collapsed. And so, Sudan never really, was able to go further, but Sudan was part of that at that time, so that, that changed the regional dynamic.
00:15:53:05 – 00:16:29:24
Marc J Sievers
And it focused a lot of attention away from the confrontation with Iran. And then you had the Biden administration’s policy, which was basically to try very hard to revive the JCPoA. I think that was a serious and sincere effort on the part of President Biden and, Secretary Blinken and their teams. But it failed. And it failed, I think, largely because, the Iranians weren’t, as interested in it as, Washington as the Biden administration, thought they would be.
00:16:30:01 – 00:17:09:07
Marc J Sievers
And, it, ran aground over the number of, side issues, including, the role of the, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or the IRGC in, developing, you know, militias and undermining, the stability of a number of regional countries, at the time, you had, a lot of muscle flexing in Tehran and one of the commanders of the IRGC making a comment about how Iran rules for Arab capitals or something to that effect.
00:17:09:09 – 00:17:56:07
Marc J Sievers
And, a sense, I think that the United States had, tried very hard, but was not able to bring things back to where they had been in, in January 2016 when, when I arrived in Oman. Let’s move forward a little bit. Look at where we are now. Of course, the Trump administration came in, reinvigorated reestablishing a lot of the sanctions that had been the financial sanctions and particularly that had been relaxed by the Biden administration, starting a process of negotiating, renegotiating, nuclear process.
00:17:56:07 – 00:18:32:20
Marc J Sievers
But what had happened, after Trump withdrew, from the JCPoA is that Iran had very quickly ramped up its enrichment of uranium, by that, by, early 20, I got to get my dates right. 2025. There was a lot of speculation by, experts on the subject that that Iran was, was very close to having sufficient, enriched uranium to build several, nuclear devices.
00:18:32:22 – 00:19:01:14
Marc J Sievers
There was a parallel, rush, to develop Iran’s, strategic missile force, since Iran has no air force to speak of, it relied on, strategic missiles as it’s, strategic weapon to, to strike Israel into to threaten, the Gulf states. The Omanis in interestingly, I think have never been particularly concerned about Iranian military power.
00:19:01:14 – 00:19:45:07
Marc J Sievers
I think they feel fairly confident that it’s not directed at them. But that is not a view that that’s shared, though, through the rest of the Gulf. So, that process, of course, came to an end, last June with, the Israeli strikes, on Iran, the Iranian retaliation, and finally, President Trump’s, intervention at the last phase of, the June, the 12 day war, between Israel and Iran, when he, sent, you know, the bombers to bomb the Natanz, nuclear facility.
00:19:45:09 – 00:20:16:20
Marc J Sievers
And, that war came to an end, basically on, President Trump’s instructions to Prime Minister Netanyahu to, to make it stopped. There was a kind of, perfunctory, Iranian retaliation against the American, airbase in, in Qatar. But that was, choreographed in a way that that nobody was seriously injured. And that was where things stopped.
00:20:16:22 – 00:20:46:24
Marc J Sievers
Since then, I think, you know, a kind of rational analysis of Iran’s position with all the damage that was inflicted last June. And the great setback, I won’t say their nuclear program is destroyed, but it certainly, doesn’t. It’s nowhere near the, you know, threshold nuclear power that they appeared to be, earlier last year.
00:20:47:01 – 00:21:30:22
Marc J Sievers
And, and yet the Iranian rhetoric has been, we, we continue to have a right to enrich uranium. The no one can, can tell us to, to make that stop. So, once we are able to repair our facilities and regain access to whatever’s buried under the ground, we will resume those programs. And that, I just saw the foreign minister Araghchi said, there will be no, negotiations over Iran’s ballistic missile force, which they have been again, developing, redeveloping fairly quickly over the last six months or so.
00:21:30:24 – 00:22:04:01
Marc J Sievers
And so, I, you know, there is a build-up of, of American military force. There was, of course, the, the uprising, the popular uprising in Iran and, the slaughter of large numbers of protesters. I won’t venture numbers because I, I see such a range that that I’m not in the position to say, but certainly very, very large, perhaps on for Iran, at least, unprecedentedly large numbers of, protesters, shot down in the streets.
00:22:04:03 – 00:22:42:24
Marc J Sievers
And President Trump, warned the Iranian leadership that if they used, force, if they killed their people, that he would hold them to account and implied that, American military power would be used to do that. Since then, we see this buildup of, two aircraft carrier groups and other deployments, surface to air, you know, Patriot missile batteries and in various places in the region, F-35 jets, moved into position.
00:22:43:01 – 00:23:26:00
Marc J Sievers
But, the United States has not, launched a strike. We, this brought us to, the last round of negotiations. I’m still trying to understand if it was entirely indirect or if there was some sort of direct talk at all, but it certainly seems like it went back to the formula that existed in the, in the Biden administration, where the United States agreed, to, Iran’s demand that there be no direct, discussions between Iranian and American diplomats and that in this case, the foreign minister of Oman said better.
00:23:26:00 – 00:23:54:01
Marc J Sievers
Al do say he was the one who went back and forth, carrying the messages back and forth. I don’t think it was a very lengthy discussion. And, but there was some agreement, apparently, to have a, a further negotiation, perhaps a more substantive negotiation, since this appeared to have been the kind of, you know, testing of whether there was willingness to engage.
00:23:54:03 – 00:24:28:17
Marc J Sievers
But I see no flexibility, in the Iranian position. And I see it as far as I know, the United States position is that ballistic missiles have to be part of the package, Iranian support for, militias, throughout the region. Has to be part of the and their undermining of, their neighbouring, Arab governments, has to be part of the package and, perhaps most essentially that Iran cannot, enrich uranium.
00:24:28:19 – 00:25:02:20
Marc J Sievers
So, I see an impasse. It is likely it appears there may be another round of negotiations, but it still seems likely to me that, you know, the president has basically a range of options. What to do? I’m sure the, you know, the CENTCOM commanders have presented him with, a whole, smorgasbord of potential military options and lots of discussions about what the goal would be, how that would work.
00:25:02:22 – 00:25:28:15
Marc J Sievers
But I suppose it’s still possible that he could decide that he just doesn’t want to go down that road and to walk away. But that just seems very unlikely to me. But I, I am a bit reluctant to predict, what happens next, but I think that’s, an explanation of where we are and kind of how we got there.
00:25:28:17 – 00:25:53:20
Daniel J Levy
Thank you for that. Really, really interesting. So, first question for me before we, move on to the floor, where does Israel come into that? We’ve seen the expansion of Israeli relations with Gulf countries. I think in late 2018, Netanyahu made a very high-profile visit to Oman. So where does Muscat sit with over normalization of diplomatic ties and the potential of joining the Abraham Accords?
00:25:53:22 – 00:26:22:13
Marc J Sievers
I think they’ve ruled it out for now. You’re absolutely right. The late Sultan Qaboos, in, I believe, November 2018, invited, Prime Minister Netanyahu. He was also prime minister then, with a different governing coalition, to visit Muscat. The visit was actually secret while it took place, the foreign minister told me it was coming and I reported it to Washington, but he said, please tell.
00:26:22:17 – 00:26:51:03
Marc J Sievers
Make them swear that they won’t leak it because it won’t happen if, if, it gets, you know, exposed to the media before it takes place. So, thankfully, everybody kept the secret, and I was waiting. It took place, I think, on, over a Thursday, Netanyahu for government coalition reasons, and, had to be back in Israel before sunset on Friday.
00:26:51:05 – 00:27:19:23
Marc J Sievers
His, personal plane was able to fly through Saudi airspace, which was kind of an early indication that the Saudis weren’t at least, blocking this. And he came with a, you know, a very I mean, with his wife, but also with, his military secretary, the head of the Mossad. I forget exactly who else was there, but a very, very senior, delegation.
00:27:19:23 – 00:27:45:24
Marc J Sievers
And since Oman and Israel had no diplomatic relations, it was a very unusual thing for an Israeli prime minister to do to come and spend the night, and then bring this kind of a delegation to a, you know, a foreign country with which there was no, no formal relations, apparently was quite a, an interesting meeting.
00:27:45:24 – 00:28:22:03
Marc J Sievers
I never got a I don’t know of a substantive readout, really. There’s a bit about it in, in Netanyahu’s autobiography that he published a few years ago. But not a lot. But there’s an after Friday sunset in Israel. Everything went public. And there was a, you know, a burst of, media coverage and photos and, very interesting picture of, Sultan Qaboos leading Netanyahu’s through his palace and using a pointer to point a large map, of the Gulf on the wall.
00:28:22:03 – 00:28:49:09
Marc J Sievers
And it certainly looks like he’s pointing at Saudi Arabia. Hold on. Who knows exactly what was going on? They treated the Israeli delegation to a, a performance by the Palace Orchestra, which I’ve been to a few of those. And it’s a fabulous thing. And so, it was very, very warm and, celebratory, and yet nothing really came out of it.
00:28:49:11 – 00:29:14:07
Marc J Sievers
I think caboose had something substantive in mind to follow up on it. But we have to bear in mind that he was very, very ill with cancer. I think he knew he was dying. And he simply may not have had, the fortitude physically to forge ahead with it. There was a, not surprisingly, backlash.
00:29:14:09 – 00:29:39:07
Marc J Sievers
Not inside Oman, but, around the Arab world, certainly from the Palestinians, but also from some of the other neighbours. Not really in the Gulf, I don’t think, but in the Levant, there was a lot of criticism, and it just sort of fizzled. So, I’m not sure what the, the actual intent was, but it was a very interesting thing to watch, but nothing really happened.
00:29:39:09 – 00:30:07:20
Marc J Sievers
After he died and he was succeeded by his cousin, Sultan Haitham. I was still in Oman, and I noticed a Marced, backing away from, even sort of low key behind the scenes engagement with Israel, which had become fairly normalized in Oman. And so, when the Abraham Accords were signed, a lot of people distressed.
00:30:07:20 – 00:30:31:06
Marc J Sievers
Some Israeli friends, others in Washington contacted me. I was still in Muscat, and retired, and they said, well, mom’s going to be next. And I said, no, I really don’t think so. I don’t I don’t think that that’s where they are right now. That they might that they would likely, in my opinion, follow Saudi Arabia if Saudi Arabia normalized with Israel.
00:30:31:06 – 00:30:40:08
Marc J Sievers
But they were not going to be part of this. Initial Abraham support, push. So that’s where that is.
00:30:40:10 – 00:30:42:15
Daniel J Levy
Great, thank you so much.