How the Iran War Forced the Gulf to Rethink Its Security

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. This tack gained momentum after the 2015 nuclear deal eased Tehran’s isolation even as Syria and Yemen deepened fears of Iranian regional reach. At the same time, Washington emphasized a pivot to Asia, though the Gulf capitals never quite believed in it. The strategy hardened into doctrine after Trump pulled out of the deal in 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. But all of them expect a new regional security architecture eventually, and the harder question is where diversification stops being hedging and starts being an architecture in its own right.

The strategic alignments within the GCC have shifted repeatedly. The Saudi-UAE-Bahrain blockade of Qatar, imposed in 2017, has largely given way to a different configuration, with Riyadh now closer to Doha and Muscat than to Abu Dhabi. But beneath these differences, a growing Gulf consensus is taking shape: a rejection of both an Iranian-led axis and Israeli regional paramountcy, coupled with a willingness to engage pragmatically with both countries.