2022 Persian Gulf Crisis (Double Collapse)

2022 Persian Gulf Crisis
Part of Second Arab Cold War
Date 15 April – 22 August 2022 (4 months and 1 week) Place Persian Gulf Result Outbreak of the 2022 Middle Eastern War
Parties involved in the crisis
Saudi Arabia United States Turkey Kuwait Syria	Iran Iraq Kurdish People's Republic Supported by: Lebanon
Commanders and leaders
Salman Barack Obama Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah	Ali Khamenei Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed Abdullah Öcalan

The 2022 Persian Gulf Crisis was a major geopolitical crisis taking place between mainly Saudi Arabia and Iran along with their respective allies.

The crisis emerged after an Iranian battleship fired at Saudi frigate Makkah as a result of a major standoff between the two navies. The Iranian government initially blamed Saudi Arabia for causing the incident, and justified the naval attack by the Iranian Navy as an attempt to stop major Saudi Arabian aggression. The United States and Turkey sided with Saudi Arabia, blaming Iran for triggering the crisis, while Iraq declared its support for Iran. Iran has threatened war on Saudi Arabia, the United States and Turkey multiple times, leading to U.S. President Barack Obama promising in a speech to negotiate peace, with war "being the last scenario, which in that case the United States will not activate Article 5 of NATO unless another NATO member not involved in the conflict is attacked".

Negotiations in Tehran began in mid-May 2022, although slowed down in June after constant attempts by Iranian diplomats to force the Saudi government to accept responsibility for the outbreak of the crisis. Negotiations finally broke down in mid-July after the Iranian government refused to hold the conference any longer, and began a major military build-up with Iraq doing the same. The crisis escalated further in early August when leaked documents showed Iraqi plans for a military invasion of Kuwait in a war with Saudi Arabia in order to secure the country's oil fields, which lead to Kuwait siding with Saudi Arabia and its allies in the crisis. On 2 August, Iran announced its recognition of the Kurdish People's Republic, which angered Turkey even further.

Iran and Iraq's stance in the crisis were condemned by multiple countries and organisations, with the United Nations adopting a resolution that condemned the two countries' actions and demanding them to "recognise their faults and to prevent the Middle East from becoming the center of war again". However, despite desperate attempts to negotiate peace, after another attack allegedly by Saudi troops, Iran, Iraq and Kurdistan jointly declared war on Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which resulted in the United States and Turkey declaring war on Iran, Iraq and Kurdistan, beginning the 2022 Middle Eastern War.