Arab Gulf nations, battered economically and bodily via the warfare with Iran, have been prepared to place on a united entrance at a key regional assembly on April 28, 2026.
Amassing within the Saudi town Jeddah, representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council warned the Iranian executive in Tehran that an assault on any one in every of its six participants can be taken as an assault on all. Rejecting Iran’s claims to keep an eye on of the Strait of Hormuz, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani later described the summit as embodying “the unified Gulf stance” over the war.
The display of togetherness would possibly appear at odds with different fresh traits that experience observed participants of the GCC cut up over coverage and imaginative and prescient for the area – now not least the United Arab Emirate’s choice to give up the oil cartel OPEC.
However to fans of Gulf politics, like myself, the scene felt acquainted. Again and again, Iran has achieved what no out of doors mediator may: It has driven divided Gulf Arab states in combination. When tensions upward push, the monarchies of the GCC – Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman – generally tend to face united, a minimum of publicly.
From revolution to coordination
The fashionable Gulf safety setting used to be profoundly formed via the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Iran stocks a slender and strategically important waterway with the Gulf states however has lengthy differed in identification and outlook. Particularly, Iran’s Shiite modern type contrasts with the Sunni-led monarchies around the area.
Earlier than 1979, when Iran used to be dominated via Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Iran and Saudi Arabia, the biggest of the Sunni Arab Gulf states, have been appeared via Washington as “twin pillars,” protective American pursuits within the Heart East. Their dating used to be cooperative, however now not shut.
Then the emergence of the Islamic Republic after the revolution in 1979 offered a brand new more or less regional actor – one outlined now not most effective via state energy but additionally via Shiite ideological ambition.
Gulf monarchies’ worry over each exterior safety and inner steadiness used to be bolstered via the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure in Saudi Arabia, when Islamist militants seized Islam’s holiest website. The development, along Iran’s revolution, uncovered the vulnerability of Gulf regimes to religiously pushed upheaval.
The 1979 siege at Mecca’s Grand Mosque raised worry over safety around the Gulf area.
AFP by way of Getty Photographs
In line with this revolution ideology, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE established the GCC in 1981. Despite the fact that formally framed as a platform for financial and political cooperation, the group additionally mirrored shared safety issues and Arab identification.
However cohesion had limits. Member states didn’t all view threats to their respective regimes in the similar manner.
Saudi Arabia fearful about U.S. drive for reforms; Kuwait feared neighboring Iraq; Bahrain used to be eager about Iran’s affect over its personal Shiite inhabitants; and the UAE fearful about each Iran and its personal massive international group of workers. In the meantime, Oman and Qatar adopted a extra impartial or balanced way.
Those variations would form the trajectory of the GCC, and Arab Gulf states’ dating with Tehran.
The eight-year Iran–Iraq Battle, which started in 1980, delivered to the fore fears of Iran’s affect around the area. Whilst Oman declared neutrality, different GCC states supported Iraq via funneling billions of bucks to the regime of Saddam Hussein.
This printed an early development: Gulf states may coordinate politically, however have shyed away from performing as a unmarried strategic bloc. The GCC extensively appreciated Iraq as a counterweight to Iran, however there used to be no unified technique or formal coverage.
Safety dependence
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 reshaped the area’s safety construction once more. In early 1991, the transfer caused a U.S.-led coalition, together with Saudi Arabia and different Gulf states, to expel Iraqi forces. Saudi Arabia’s position used to be particularly vital: It now not most effective hosted coalition forces but additionally actively participated militarily – marking one of the crucial first primary episodes by which a GCC state used to be immediately concerned within the protection of some other member.
American troops at Dhahran airport in Saudi Arabia right through Operation Desolate tract Protect.
Eric Bouvet/Gamma-Rapho by way of Getty Photographs
Right through – and particularly after – the Gulf Battle, GCC states deepened their reliance on the USA, agreeing to host U.S. army bases and increasing long-term protection cooperation.
This exterior safety umbrella supplied a measure of steadiness, nevertheless it additionally offered new variations. Whilst Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain aligned extra carefully with Washington’s strategic framework, others – significantly Oman and Qatar – maintained a extra versatile way. In consequence, the semblance of cohesion coexisted with rising variation in nationwide methods.
This development has endured in recent times, considerably thru diplomatic strikes to normalize ties with Israel beneath the Abraham Accords. Whilst the UAE and Bahrain moved briefly to formalize ties with Israel, others remained extra wary.
The trouble to include Iran
In relation to preventing Iranian affect, GCC states have lengthy performed other roles.
Oman has persistently acted as a mediator, keeping up open channels with Tehran and facilitating quiet international relations — together with back-channel talks between Iran and Western states.
Qatar additionally stored verbal exchange open, partially as a result of shared financial pursuits with Iran – in particular the control of the North Box/South Pars fuel reserve.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE, against this, have normally taken a extra wary and from time to time confrontational stance towards Iran. Each view Iran as a regional competitor and a supply of safety issues, in particular because of Tehran’s missile program and its toughen for ideologically antagonistic non-state actors.
This contrasting option to Iran around the GCC lets in other states to have interaction Tehran thru a couple of channels, nevertheless it additionally makes it more difficult to shape a constant, unified GCC technique.
A converting regional steadiness
The 2003 Iraq Battle marked a turning level within the GCC-Iran dynamic. The elimination of Iraq as a regional counterweight allowed Iran to extend its affect.
And this building sharpened divisions throughout the GCC.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE an increasing number of considered Iran as an instantaneous strategic risk requiring containment. Qatar and Oman, on the other hand, emphasised discussion and mediation.
Those variations changed into extra visual right through the Qatar diplomatic disaster of 2017. The dispute targeted round Qatar’s toughen for Islamist political teams such because the Muslim Brotherhood, thought to be a 15 may organization via the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain severed diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed a complete air, land and sea blockade in June 2017. The 3 countries accused Qatar of supporting extremist teams and keeping up shut ties with Iran. Remoted, Qatar depended on Iran for airspace, business routes and provides, strengthening the connection between the nations. The blockade sooner or later resulted in January 2021, when the events signed a declaration restoring diplomatic and business family members at a GCC summit in Saudi Arabia.
GCC beneath assault
The sequence of occasions that started with the Oct. 7, 2023, assault via Iranian-backed Hamas in Israel shook up GCC family members with Tehran.
In June 2025, in line with the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, Tehran struck a U.S. base in Qatar – the primary such assault on a GCC state via Tehran.
At an abnormal assembly in Doha, Qatar’s capital, GCC participants pledged complete team spirit with Qatar and strongly condemned the Iranian assault.
Nevertheless it used to be now not sufficient to forestall Iran from attacking all six GCC states in line with the continuing war begun in February 2026 via U.S. and Israel.
The following closure of the Strait of Hormuz, affecting 20% of worldwide oil provides, has sparked what many see as the most important disaster within the Gulf for the reason that inception of the GCC.
The GCC answered via emphasizing collective safety and cohesion. However another time, the general public display of togetherness mask divergent perspectives on methods to reply. When the warfare ends, every state will most probably go back to its personal strategic and international coverage way.
Working out the development
Since 1979, Tehran’s movements within the Gulf area have uncovered two parallel traits. At the floor, there are shared issues amongst GCC participants and public presentations of cohesion. However beneath this facade of cohesion, every state has endured to broaden its personal nationwide priorities and chance tolerance.
The combo of those two elements is helping give an explanation for why the GCC steadily seems unified right through crises, whilst final internally divided over how to reply to them.
Relatively than viewing the GCC as an absolutely cohesive bloc, it can be extra correct to peer it as a framework the place cooperation and war of words coexist.
