The Washington Times addressed Arab views of the Iran nuclear agreement quoting AGSIW Senior Scholar Husein Ibish who said, “The most common Arab reaction is to say good, but we want to see how Iran is going to behave in the future.” He continued, “Most people in the Arab world are very skeptical about Iran and mistrustful, especially along sectarian lines. Iran is not popular these days in the Sunni-Arab world.”

Following U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit with GCC leaders in Doha on August 3, Al Jazeera America reported Qatar’s desire to deepen dialogue with Iran, but stated that Saudi Arabia has not echoed that call. The article quoted Ibish noting, “The nuclear agreement with Iran has propelled Saudi Arabia to make rolling back Iran’s regional influence a priority.”

In Abdallah Schleifer’s opinion piece on Al Arabiya “Who can defeat ISIS?” he cites an article by Ibish in The National, in which Ibish mentions that the countries involved in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant each have other priorities.