The Gulf states in a fluid post-war Middle East

The monarchical Arab Gulf states emerged on the other side of last June’s Israeli and US attacks on Iran largely unscathed, with the important exception of a limited, retaliatory Iranian missile strike on the American airbase in Qatar. However, in a larger sense, this short war, part of the broader regional conflict that began with the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, reinforced the precariousness of the Gulf monarchies’ security situation. Despite their efforts over recent years to normalize relations with Iran, this did not prevent Tehran from threatening to hit back against US forces stationed on their territory — a threat actually carried out against Qatar. Their close relations with the United States, displayed during President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates in May 2025, proved to be of little use in their efforts to urge restraint on Washington during the conflict. When Trump praised Iran for being “very nice” in its limited strike on Qatar, rather than responding to an attack on an ally that hosts the largest American military base in the region, Gulf leaders may well have harked back to the US president’s first term, when, in September 2019, Iran struck Saudi oil facilities but the United States likewise took no retaliatory action. In June 2025, the Gulf monarchies had little influence with any of the combatants — Israel, Iran, or the United States — but were on the conflict’s front lines. When the missiles started to fly, they proved themselves to be non-player characters, not actors.

Despite spending huge amounts of money on their militaries, the Gulf monarchies are not effective actors in war. However, with the guns largely silenced in the Gulf (though not elsewhere in the Middle East), Saudi Arabia and its monarchical neighbors can once again exploit their financial and diplomatic resources to be active regional players rather than bystanders. The United States can usefully partner with them in efforts to stabilize Syria, engage Iran in a new diplomatic push to limit its nuclear ambitions, and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. However, productive cooperation with the Gulf monarchies on these important initiatives requires that Washington understand how the Gulf leaders assess the changed power realities in the region in the wake of these recent conflicts. Gulf views of Israel, the Palestinian issue, Syria, and Iran are much changed from President Trump’s first term and even from the eve of the Hamas attack on Israel.

The Gulf states and Syria

The collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria in December 2024 is the most consequential geopolitical change to come out of the broader regional conflict that began in October 2023. The Gulf states all, to greater or lesser degrees, supported the Syrian uprising in 2011. For Saudi Arabia in particular, the rise of Syrian opposition groups provided a chance to roll back Iranian influence in the Arab world. However, they were not able to develop the kind of effective patron-client relations with Syrian opposition forces that Iran had been able to cultivate with groups across the region — not least the Assad regime itself — and exploit for its own purposes. The fact that the Syrian opposition came to be dominated by Salafi jihadists, who are as threatening to Gulf rulers as they were to Assad, put a limit on Gulf support. The Gulf states in the last few years appeared to be resigning themselves to the Syrian strongman’s staying in power. Syria resumed membership in the Arab League in 2023 (though Kuwait and Qatar opposed the step). Saudi Arabia and the UAE sent ambassadors back to Damascus in early 2024, and other Gulf governments took steps to reopen their embassies. Assad’s sudden collapse thus caught the Gulf, and most of the rest of the world, by surprise. It was an unanticipated result of Israel’s decimation of the Hizballah leadership in Lebanon and successful military encounters with Iran in April and October 2024. Assad’s most important regional allies were unable to come to his aid when the forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) made their lightening march on Damascus the following December.

The Gulf states immediately engaged with the new Syrian regime, despite some misgivings about Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s jihadist past and worries that Turkey was replacing Iran as the dominant outside influence in Damascus. Saudi Arabia and Qatar paid off Syria’s outstanding debt to the World Bank in May 2025, allowing the financial institution to work with the new government. In that same month, Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman engineered a meeting between Sharaa and Trump in Riyadh, leading to the lifting of most American sanctions on the war-torn country. The Gulf states have been anxious to be involved in the new Syria.

Gulf capital and diplomatic heft can play a positive role in rebuilding the Syrian economy, but only if the new government can stabilize the security situation in the country. US Central Command, which continues to station a few thousand American troops in Syria, has worked to mediate between the largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which control much of northeastern Syria, and the new government. Tom Barrack, the Trump administration’s special envoy to Syria who simultaneously serves as US ambassador to Turkey, has taken an active role in smoothing out Syrian-Israeli tensions. The recent eruption of violence among Syrian Druze militias, Bedouin fighters, and government forces around the southern Syrian city of Suwayda in July 2025, which led to Israeli airstrikes in support of the Druze forces, highlights the difficulties faced by President Sharaa in stabilizing a country coming out of 14 years of civil war.

While the United States is working to assist in stabilizing Syria, the efforts lack an overall sense of direction and clear support from President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A more comprehensive American approach should include the Gulf states as active partners. Only American diplomatic heft can reconcile the various parties involved in Syria — Israel, Turkey, the America-backed SDF, and the new government, among others. But only the Gulf states can provide the money to support the fledgling Syrian government, grease the wheels for Syrian domestic actors to come to terms with the new regime, and eventually encourage a revival of the Syrian economy.

The consequences of failure to stabilize Syria are dire — in effect, potentially leading to the creation of a new Lebanon bordering Israel, Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan, in which Salafi jihadist and Iran-sponsored actors thrive and regional powers play out their balance-of-power games. Fostering a stable order in Syria would consolidate Iran’s geopolitical setback in the eastern Arab world, provide greater security for Israel and Turkey, and contribute to overall regional stability. American and Gulf state interests coincide here. This outcome requires more active and organized American diplomacy to realize the potential benefits of cooperation.

The Gulf states and Iran

Saudi Arabia’s lack of enthusiastic support for the Trump administration’s decision to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities might have surprised casual observers of American policy in the Middle East. Riyadh had engaged with Tehran in a decades-long contest for influence in the Middle East, as the Iranians racked up more victories (Lebanon, Iraq, Syria before 2025, Yemen) than the Saudis. The kingdom enthusiastically joined the first Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” policy on Iran, with Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman comparing Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Adolf Hitler and threatening to “take the fight” into Iran itself. One might think, therefore, that Saudi Arabia would be more than happy to see American bombs dropped on Iran. That assumption would be wrong.

The Saudis and the UAE, the two Gulf states traditionally most antagonistic toward Iran, have changed their tune on their Persian neighbor in recent years. Their confrontational approach had yielded few positives and many negatives, including missile and drone attacks on both countries by Iran’s Yemeni allies, the Houthis. As noted above, Iran directly attacked Saudi oil facilities in September 2019, striking back against Saudi support for Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy. In a shock to the Saudi leadership, Washington took no action against Tehran in retaliation for the most serious threat to the free flow of oil from the region to the world since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

By the turn of the 2020s, both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi looked to restore normal relations with Tehran. The UAE ambassador returned to the Iranian capital in 2022. China mediated a restoration of Saudi-Iranian diplomatic relations in 2023. In the end, Saudi and Emirati economic agendas led them to privilege regional stability over confrontation with Iran. Muhammad bin Salman’s ambitious Vision 2030 plan to lessen the Saudi economy’s dependence on oil requires the country to become a magnet for tourists, foreign investment, and non-oil trade. Regional instability works against all of those goals. Likewise, the UAE, already the regional leader in those categories, does not want to put its successful economic model at risk. Confrontation with Iran is bad for business.

The other Gulf states, aside from Bahrain, had consistently maintained businesslike, if not close, relations with Iran. Qatar, which shares management of the huge North Dome/South Pars offshore gas field with Iran, needs regular relations with Tehran. Oman similarly shares management of the Strait of Hormuz with Iran and has a long tradition of regular relations with its cross-Gulf neighbor. Oman hosted the early stages of the Iranian-American negotiations during the administration of President Barack Obama that led to the Iran nuclear deal in 2015. Kuwait, focused since 1991 on Iraq as its major security worry, has had normal relations with Iran for decades.

None of this should imply that the Gulf states see Iran as an ally or even a responsible neighbor. They all view the country, with its long imperial history in the region and its recent record of support for revolutionary Shi’a and Islamist opposition groups, as at best a problem and at worst a threat. However, they all agree they do not want to be drawn into a conflict with Iran by either the United States or Israel. Qatar’s experience in the most recent conflict, while limited in terms of damage, is an object lesson that the Gulf states will find themselves on the front lines of regional conflict, even if they are not a combatant, whether they want to be or not.

The Gulf states will not be signing up for a new version of “maximum pressure” on Iran. However, if the Trump administration is looking to follow up the military success of its June 2025 airstrikes with a new diplomatic effort to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Gulf states are very well positioned to facilitate. The administration has been surprisingly passive in the wake of the brief Iran-Israel war, neither increasing military and economic pressure on Iran nor using the shock of the June conflict to test Tehran’s willingness to negotiate on the nuclear question. As Washington gets its act together, it should keep in mind that the Gulf states will be reluctant to join a pressure campaign against Iran but more than willing to help with a diplomatic initiative.

The Gulf states, Israel, and the Palestinians

In contrast, the Gulf states are divided about how to deal with Israel. The UAE and Bahrain were enthusiastic participants in the Abraham Accords, negotiated in the first Trump administration. Even through the Gaza war and resulting humanitarian crisis, they have maintained diplomatic relations with Israel. Oman and Qatar have in the past engaged with Israel at an official level but are not willing to take the leap to diplomatic relations. Kuwait, the only Gulf state with an active and independent parliament (though suspended by the ruling amir since May 2024), is loath to face the popular blowback that could come with recognition of Israel. That leaves Saudi Arabia. Both President Joseph Biden’s and Trump’s administrations have worked assiduously to bring the Saudis into the Abraham Accords. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel has been very public in its courtship of Riyadh. The Saudis are the prize for Israel and the US.

Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman has been open about his willingness to engage with the Israelis, but for a price. Biden administration officials contend that they were on the verge of meeting that price before the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. The deal involved a US security treaty with Riyadh and assistance in developing the Saudi nuclear industry, along with some commitment by Israel to improve the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. In exchange, Saudi Arabia would extend diplomatic recognition to Israel. Even after the attack, the administration continued to pursue such a deal, hoping it would provide Israel an incentive to end the conflict in Gaza.

During President Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May 2025, he publicly talked about Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords but conceded that the Saudis would do that “in [their] own time.” This was a realistic acknowledgment that the Gaza war has changed the Saudi calculus on recognition of Israel in two ways. First, a major impetus for Saudi consideration of a new relationship with Israel was their joint view of the Iranian threat. Yet with Iran much weakened by its setbacks in the region since the Gaza war began, the value of an explicit Israeli tie for Riyadh is reduced. Second, the horrors visited upon the population of Gaza by the continuing Israeli military assault have raised the salience of the Palestinian issue across the Arab world and in Saudi Arabia itself. Perhaps understandable in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ brutal attack on Oct. 7, 2023, the continuing ferocity and duration of the Israeli campaign now seems aimed at something beyond simply the defeat of Hamas. The cost to the Saudis of a deal with Israel has thus gone up. Riyadh has publicly stated on numerous occasions that its recognition of Israel is predicated on Israel agreeing to a timetable for Palestinian statehood, a more specific and far-reaching Israeli concession than the Saudis required before Oct. 7. Given both the current composition of the Israeli government and the hardening of Israeli public opinion over the past nearly two years, it is impossible to imagine Prime Minister Netanyahu agreeing to this Saudi condition.

It would, therefore, be a mistake for Washington to push for a dramatic breakthrough on the larger Palestinian question at this time. However, the more modest but still difficult question of a Gaza cease-fire remains. The humanitarian reasons for the United States to end the war are obvious, as the starvation of the population in the Gaza Strip has become a front-page story not only in the Arab world but even for Americans. An effective and durable cease-fire would facilitate Gulf state cooperation with other international partners to provide immediate relief for Gazans as well as open up the possibility of Gulf involvement in the longer-term task of rebuilding and governing the enclave. The July 29, 2025, declaration of the Arab League, supported by all the Gulf states, calling for the disarmament of Hamas and the end of its rule in Gaza is a signal that there is a willingness on the Arab side to support new initiatives.

The Gulf States and the United States

The brief Israel-Iran war of June 2025, which was brought to an abrupt end by the American bombing of Iran and subsequent cease-fire announced by the Trump administration, highlighted two realities for the Gulf states. First, as argued above, it reinforced the fact that the Gulf states are not effective or independent military actors. Their security is largely determined by outside powers over whom they have little influence in times of conflict; they need protection. Second, despite the obvious changes in the global balance of power, with the rise of China and the aggressive revanchism of Russia, the United States remains the only great power with the military and diplomatic tools to shape the course of conflict in the Middle East. That two-factor equation yields the solution that all the Gulf states recognize — that they need the United States as their primary security partner.

This is not news in Riyadh or the other Gulf capitals, and it helped contribute to the lavish reception accorded to President Trump in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE in May 2025. But it does reinforce American leverage over the Gulf states — even if that leverage is not unlimited. Their ties to the US aside, all the Gulf states are concurrently building significant economic relations with China, their most important energy customer and trading partner. Saudi Arabia needs cooperative relations with Russia in the context of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus (OPEC+) if it has any hope of managing the world oil market. However, when it comes to security, there is no substitute for the United States.

How should the Trump administration use that leverage to best effect? The indications from the May trip are that the president sees the Gulf largely, if not exclusively, as a source for capital infusions into the American economy. His Gulf hosts did not disappoint on that score, promising over $2 trillion in investments, according to the White House; though it remains to be seen exactly how much of those commitments will be realized. If Trump can encourage his Gulf partners to commit just a fraction of that amount to helping fund the Syrian transition and to dealing with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, he could stabilize a region that has, despite the stated intentions of the last three American presidents, drawn the US into repeated military conflicts. By combining the financial and diplomatic resources of America’s Gulf partners with the unmatched hard power of the United States — demonstrated yet again in the June 2025 conflict — Washington could help bring about a more stable and, at least in part, more peaceful Middle East.

F. Gregory Gause III is a Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Institute. He is also a professor emeritus of international affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University.

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