TIME
· collected 2026-09-14 · by H.A. Hellyer
Story summary
In July 2023, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was buried following a joint American-Israeli military strike four months earlier. Notably, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman sent official delegations to the funeral, while the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain did not attend. This absence raised questions about the Gulf states' stance toward Iran.
Before the war initiated by then-US President Donald Trump in February 2023, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states were diversifying their economies beyond oil dependence, aiming to maintain stability in a tumultuous region. However, Trump's decision to engage militarily with Iran exposed the fragility of this strategy.
During the war, Iran launched attacks on critical infrastructure in the GCC countries, including hitting Saudi facilities at Abqaiq and Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas complex. These strikes significantly increased war-risk insurance costs for businesses operating in the region. Gulf states retaliated against Iran in private, according to some accounts, though there were denials from certain nations like Qatar.
The conflict led to a rare strategic convergence among GCC members as they reassessed their security and economic dependencies, highlighting the need for stronger regional defense mechanisms beyond oil reliance.
Written for “Iran War Gulf Security” on 2026-09-14,
grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.
Showing up at a funeral matters everywhere, but especially in the Arab world and the wider Middle East.
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Showing → show → world
When Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, was buried on July 9,just over four months after he was killed in a joint American-Israeli military strike.
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he → bury → strike
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman sent official delegations to the funeral.
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Arabia → send → funeral
The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain did not.
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Emirates → do → ?
Before the war, the Gulf states were diversifying their economies beyond oil, betting on remaining islands of stability in a turbulent Middle East.
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states → diversify → East
President Donald Trump’s decision to wage war on Iran, despite their opposition, exposed the fragility of that bet.
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decision → wage → bet
War-risk insurance costs soared, and Iranian attacks followed.
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attacks → soar → ?
Saudi facilities at Abqaiq and Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas complex were hit; the UAE intercepted barrages for weeks; Bahrain and Kuwait weren’t spared either.
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Bahrain → hit → weeks
Though it wasn’t widely reported, Saudi Arabia and the UAE struck Iran, as, according to some accounts, did Qatar—though Doha denies it.
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Doha → report → it
In private, Gulf officials confirm that most Gulf Arab states retaliated.
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states → confirm → ?
The war produced unusual strategic convergence among the Gulf monarchies.
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war → produce → monarchies
There is now widespread recognition that the region’s existing security framework has failed.
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framework → be → ?
Though coordination behind the scenes may run deeper, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), created in 1981, has invoked its collective-defense clause only once.
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Council → run → clause
Officials broadly agree on three points: Iran remains a long-term threat; the U.S. security umbrella is no longer dependable; and regional stability has become an existential priority.
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stability → agree → points
They also see two clear challenges.
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They → see → challenges
One is an Iranian regime that continues to pursue its vision of an “Iranian Axis” across the region.
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that → continue → region
The other is an Israel bent on “regional paramountcy,” the presumption that it alone sets the terms of force while the region adjusts.
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region → bend → force
Yet consensus on diagnosis only sharpened disagreement over the prescription.
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consensus → sharpen → prescription
Competition among the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, means that convergence remains a trend rather than a settled fact.
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convergence → mean → states
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced a fractious Europe into greater cohesion without resolving disagreements over how forcefully to confront Moscow.
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invasion → force → Moscow
Iran and Israel are now subjecting the Gulf Arab states to a comparable test.
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Iran → subject → test
An unreliable U.S. security umbrella
The war altered the Gulf’s calculus on two fronts at once.
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war → alter → fronts
Iran proved to be at least as dangerous as the most hawkish Gulf capitals had warned.
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capitals → prove → ?
The other shock was less expected: Washington was willing to start a regional war alongside Israel, despite Gulf objections, and then prove unable or unwilling to manage what followed.
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what → expect → objections
The Gulf states had long since stopped assuming that Washington had a coherent and effective Iran strategy; the war added a new extreme.
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war → stop → extreme
Objectives shifted by the week, and an administration in a hurry to exit, even as Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, left the Gulf Arab states feeling that they had been taken to war without being warned, consulted, or protected.
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they → shift → war
Even so, overwhelmingly, Gulf Arab states managed to intercept the overwhelming majority of what Iran fired at them.
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Iran → manage → them
“Restraint backed by functioning defenses,” Rashid Al-Mohanadi, a Qatari analyst, argued, “is not the same as restraint born of vulnerability.”
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Mohanadi → back → vulnerability
Privately, Gulf officials also say that they engaged in genuine, if discreet, quiet coordination.
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they → say → coordination
Researchers at the Carnegie Endowment recommended that GCC states could share air-defense stockpiles with each other during the attacks.
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states → recommend → attacks
The GCC’s own mutual-defense clause was never formally invoked, but member states reaffirmed their commitment to it as the war ground on.
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war → invoke → it
None of that erases the economic toll of war-risk premiums or the failure of the collective-defense mechanism to activate, but it complicates the picture.
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it → erase → picture
Most Gulf states have reverted to a previous preference: containing and de-escalating rather than confronting Iran.
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states → revert → Iran
Qatar and Oman pressed Washington toward a memorandum of understanding with Tehran; Saudi Arabia backed the Pakistan-brokered track that produced it; the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain wanted to fight on but came on board within weeks.
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UAE → press → weeks
Even that agreement highlighted the Gulf’s limited influence; it raised the possibility of a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran financed by “regional partners” who were not consulted.
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who → highlight → partners
For more than a decade, the Gulf states have been working on a diversification strategy to insure against an unreliable Washington and a threatening Tehran at once.
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states → work → Washington
This tack gained momentum after the 2015 nuclear deal eased Tehran’s isolation even as Syria and Yemen deepened fears of Iranian regional reach.
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Syria → gain → reach
At the same time, Washington emphasized a pivot to Asia, though the Gulf capitals never quite believed in it.
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capitals → emphasize → it
The strategy hardened into doctrine after Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018.
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Trump → harden → 2018
Not every Gulf state draws the same conclusion about how to navigate a region that will see less American dominance over time, a debate that remains unresolved.
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that → draw → debate
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