Oman Navigates Between Iran and Arab Nations

Oman, a strategically vital, insistently pragmatic country, has refused overtures of its larger neighbors to pull away from Iran. Instead, it defied Egypt and Saudi Arabia by declining to join them in boycotting a summit meeting in Qatar in January that was held to support Hamas, the Iranian-backed militant group. The Iranian news agency Fars said that Oman and Iran were close to completing a security pact.

One visible sign of that cooperation lies far from Muscat, at the tip of an unforgiving peninsula of jagged, rocky mountains in the governate of Musandam. Here, Oman has for years helped Iranian smugglers circumvent international trade sanctions. Fleets of small, open-topped speedboats cross the Strait of Hormuz daily, making the trip in under an hour. Docked in Oman, they load up with a wide variety of goods, including food, clothing, electronics, pharmaceuticals, air-conditioners, even motorcycles. “No one has ever tried to stop this smuggling,” said Omran Abdel Kader Abdullah, 18, a local resident who said he joined the family business supplying goods to smugglers when he finished high school. “It’s our living. Every family is involved.”

Oman is a Muslim state, but 75 percent of the population is affiliated with a conservative sect called Ibadism. Over the years Saudi religious figures have tried to spread their more fundamentalist views in Oman. “We don’t allow Saudis to work in our community,” said Said al-Hashmi, manager of research for the State Council, a government advisory body.