After years of pushing for the U.S. to make tougher moves against Iran , some of Americas closest partners in the Middle East now desperately want President Donald Trump to take a more moderate tack.

The U.S. killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani on Friday, prompting Tehran to promise revenge and bringing the U.S. closer than its been in years to an outright war with the Islamic Republic. Though U.S.-aligned countries in the Persian Gulf are happy about the death of a skilled opponent, theyre also anxious that they might suffer from Irans response and that Trump wont help if thats the case. The anxiety, along with Iran-linked attacks since the summer that reminded Gulf Arabs how vulnerable they are, has led officials to consider how their own choices have made peace harder to achieve and what they can do differently.

If those countries shift away from confrontation with Iran, it would have huge implications for the stability of the region and its hundreds of millions of people. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have brutally fought pro-Iran forces in Syria and Yemen, and have pushed the U.S. and other Western countries to take a hawkish stance toward Iran through influential officials, paid lobbyists and sympathetic contacts in industries such as the arms trade and finance. A meaningful move toward diplomacy with Tehran would be a major shift that would make American saber-rattling more difficult.

This is one positive consequence in all this: [Persian] Gulf countries are becoming more unified and realistic than they were before, said Yasmine Farouk, a visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Now, she said, the nations are asking themselves questions about whether the U.S. knows where this all is going.

Iran responded to the Soleimani assassination with strikes on American positions in Iraq on Wednesday. Trump then announced new sanctions against the country. He said he wants to eventually negotiate with the Islamic Republic but wants its behavior to change before a bargain can be struck.

His friends in the Middle East dont want to wait much longer for an agreement to de-escalate tensions, Arab officials and analysts say. The risk of U.S.-Iran conflict remains dramatically high, and other events that could spark a spiral such as Tehran retaliating further over Soleimanis death, especially since its initial response is now tied to the tragic downing of a civilian airliner , or U.S. forces and Iranian proxies veering into fighting in Iraq arent hard to imagine.

American policymakers, politicians and pundits tend to assume the more assertive Persian Gulf states are driven above all else by wariness of Tehran. Officials including White House adviser Jared Kushner have relied on that assumption to try to influence the region on issues like an Israeli-Palestinian pact. By centering its Middle East strategy on Iran, the Trump administration appeared to think it could make unprecedented gains in American influence.

But instead, Trumps plan has made Americas friends feel significantly less safe and freshly interested in finding new ways to achieve peace without the goal of total Iranian capitulation. European leaders have thought that way for years. Its significant that more bellicose Arab counterparts are coming around, too.

This perception that the Gulf countries might enjoy any of what is happening right now is a false perception, said Emma Soubrier, a visiting scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

The Arab monarchies moved quickly to stress de-escalation after the Soleimani assassination and spread the same message despite their disagreements with each other. Riyadh sent its defense minister and the brother of de facto ruler Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman, Prince Khalid, to Washington. Qatars leader spoke with Trump and sent his foreign minister to Iran. Although Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. are officially boycotting Qatar, their neighbor and fellow U.S. partner, over its regional policies and relative willingness to engage with Iran, the three countries are now aligned in a way they havent been for years.

Israel has also avoided involvement or the encouragement of escalation.