Security realignment inevitable in Middle East after Netanyahu-Trump's war

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the US and Iran tells us that all difficult issues (eg, future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, its ballistic missile infrastructure, fate of Iran’s frozen assets, etc.) will be negotiated in the next 55 days, writes Vidya S. Sharma, Ph. D.

Each of these issues could destabilise the ceasefire agreement. Perhaps, the most important destabilising factor is that Israel’s PM (who trapped President Trump into attacking Iran in the first place, as I discuss later) is not a party to this agreement. Netanyahu does not feel bound to the agreement so he is trying to sabotage the deal by disproportionately retaliating (as he has done in the Gaza Strip for nearly two and a half years) to Hezbollah responses in southern Lebanon. Will Israel stop playing a disruptive role? Last week, Vice President Vance excoriated Israeli Government ministers for criticizing the MOU.

Already much has been written/said by security analysts and foreign policy experts on how the Israel-US and Iran War may end, who has the better cards (to use President Trump’s favourite phrase) of the three combatants, or the re-escalation/de-escalation options available to Iran or the US. I do not wish to travel on that well-trodden path.

This is the first in a series of three articles. Here, I first wish to briefly discuss the background developments leading to this war to address the question how this war has bulldozed the security architecture that the GCC or Gulf Cooperation Council members (i.e., Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait) built (a) to protect themselves from external threats; and (b) then monetised it to diversify their economies by marketing themselves as offering a stable political and economic environment and reasonably liberal social atmosphere in a region plagued with interminable disputes.

Then I wish to propose that if the GCC States were to rise above internecine disputes in the interests of collective security, what the new security architecture may look like.

In the second article, I wish to discuss how the two most important members of the GCC, ie, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are most likely to respond in the aftermath of this war and what security arrangements are most likely to emerge. And in the third article I discuss how the US has further destroyed its legitimacy as a global superpower by its Iran misadventures.

A. EXISTING SECURITY ARCHITECTURE AND ITS DEMISE

MISTRUST GALORE

A few weeks ago, responding to Trump’s decision to defer deciding on the penultimate draft of the MOU, Iran’s chief negotiator, Gen. Ghalibaf, said that Tehran did not trust Washington and that “No action will be taken before the other side acts first.”

In Iran, members of a powerful, media-savvy hardline faction (led by Ebrahim Azizi, the head of Parliament’s national security and foreign policy committees) are against this deal. Similarly, Israel is trying to derail the negotiating efforts by continuing its military operations in Lebanon and by publicly stating that it is bound to any agreement between the US and Iran.

While the Azizi faction represents a minority view both in the government and amongst ordinary Iranians, Israel, on the other hand, wields enough political power amongst US lawmakers and decision-makers in Washington that it has the capacity to sabotage any agreement.

Iran has valid reasons to distrust the US.

In his March 19 article for The Economist, Omani Foreign Minister, Mr. Sayyid-Badr-Albusaidi, wrote, “Twice in nine months the United States and Iran have been on the verge of a real deal on the most difficult issue that divides them: Iran’s nuclear-energy programme and American fears that it could be a weapons programme. So it was a shock but not a surprise when on February 28th—just a few hours after the latest and most substantive talks–Israel and America again launched an unlawful military strike against the peace that had briefly appeared really possible.”

Every war or crisis in the Middle East always ends up in a stalemate. We are leading to yet another stalemate. This region is characterised by permanent transition, ambiguity, or unresolved (or unresolvable) problems and a playground for mischief-making by the global and regional superpowers of the day.

GULF STATES: OUTSOURCING THEIR SECURITY

The US signed its first security treaty with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1943 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared the defence of Saudi Arabia was "vital to the defence of the United States". Then, in 1945, the US signed the Dhahran Airfield Pact (later renamed

the King Abdul Aziz Airbase) with Saudi Arabia at a meeting between President Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz on board the USS Quincy. The purpose of these pacts was that the US would offer security to Saudi Arabia in exchange for oil.

Bahrain, being a colony of the UK until 1971, already hosted a British naval base at Juffair.

In 1948, the US Navy established its first physical presence in the Gulf by creating the Middle East Force (MIDEASTFOR). The latter used the British naval facility as its base.

When Bahrain gained its independence in 1971, the US signed a bilateral basing agreement with Bahrain to have access to the naval facility. This facility gradually evolved and now serves as a headquarters for the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

In April 1978, the Saur Revolution ( = April Revolution) took place in Afghanistan resulting in the Communist Takeover of the country. In December 1979, the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan (technically, they were invited by the teetering Communist Afghanistani government).

About the same time, Iran was in turmoil with daily protests against the Shah of Iran. The Shah’s regime (backed by the US) was as brutal and repressive as the present Iranian Islamic regime. Even after killing thousands of demonstrators, the Shah’s regime could not contain the protests. The Shah fled the country on 16 January 1979 and went to the US. The Carter Administration then organised a permanent asylum for the Shah and his family in Egypt.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran from his exile in France on 1 February 1979, and the Islamic Republic of Iran officially came into existence on 1 April 1979.

The US used these events to pressure Oman into signing the 1980 Access Agreement which granted the US military critical access to Omani airfields (such as Masirah Island) and ports.

The Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait (the first 990–1991 Gulf War) resulted in the formation of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and its members signed bilateral Defence Cooperation Agreements (DCAs) with the United States: Kuwait: September 1991; Qatar: June 1992; and United Arab Emirates (UAE): 1994.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States signed these agreements and filed them. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (the Emir of Abu Dhabi and the founder of the UAE) was the last one to sign the agreement and the first one to monetise it.

Israel and the UAE hold almost identical views on Iran. During the war, the UAE struck Iran dozens of times over many days in coordination with the U.S. and Israel.

Therefore, it is not a coincidence that Iran singled out the UAE (it was attacked more than 2800 times), more than any other Arab Gulf state, even more than Israel. Another factor may have been that it was the easiest target.

The UAE was the first to officially recognise Israel (in 2020), though the two countries have hosted each other’s trade representatives since 1996. However, Iran seems to have inflicted much more economic damage on Qatar (a very active mediator between the US and Iran). Oman came out more or less unscathed due to its neutral foreign policy.

It may surprise some readers that the US signed the first of these security agreements in the Middle East well before it signed the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (the Rio Treaty), with 20 Latin American countries on 2 September 1947. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) came into being on 4 April 1949.

The US is not any different from any other Imperial power. It follows what it perceives as its interests ruthlessly.

For example, though the RIO treaty is still legally active, for all practical purposes it died during the Falklands War of 1982 when General Galtieri, the de facto President of Argentina, invoked the Rio Treaty against Great Britain, expecting support from Latin American countries, and more particularly from the US. Instead, Ronald Reagan, the then-President of the United States, sided with the UK and imposed sanctions on Argentina.

I do not need to remind the readers of the EUReporter what President Trump thinks of his NATO allies and how he routinely insults, bullies them, and treats them with utter contempt.

President Trump’s war with Iran has at least partially rendered the present GCC’s security architecture irrelevant, if not totally impotent. Before I discuss how the present security structure may evolve, let me first briefly illustrate the origin of the present US-Israel and Iran War and how we have reached this point.

TRUMP GOES TO WAR

On March 2, 2026, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the timing of the USA’s attack on Iran by dictated by a planned Israeli attack on Iran.

According to Al Jazeera, “The top diplomat told reporters on Monday that Washington was aware Israel was going to attack Iran, and that Tehran would retaliate against US interests in the region, so US forces struck pre-emptively.”

President Trump, who does not ever want to give the impression that some circumstances or other people’s actions forced him to take any actions, contradicted Rubio the following day.

In a recently published book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump” the authors (Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, both are White House reporters for The New York Times) detail how President Trump followed his instincts and prejudices to go to war against Iran in spite of the deep reservations registered by his Vice President and a pessimistic intelligence assessment. In summary this is what Swan and Haberman discovered:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aggressive sales pitch and weak internal opposition (including by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine) drove Trump to attack Iran. Netanyahu painted a picture of swift success, the Iranian population rising in revolt against the Revolutionary Islamic Government, and manageable risk. Playing to Trump’s ego, Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that it offered Trump a golden opportunity to bring about regime change in Iran, something no US President has been able to achieve in the 45 years.

Trump, flush with his success in capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, also felt emboldened that the US military’s precision firepower could deliver the desired outcome.

The muted opposition to Netanyahu’s plan within the Trump cabinet should surprise anyone. The readers of the EUReporter may recall that out of 44 secretaries who served in the Trump Mark I Administration, only four endorsed him when he ran for the presidency in 2024.

In an interview with Joe Rogan, an influential right-wing podcaster and prominent member of Trump’s MAGA club, days before the 2024 election, Trump said that during his first term, his biggest mistake was appointing “disloyal people”.

So Howard Lutnick, co-chair of Trump’s transition team, was tasked to ensure potential appointees were ‘all going to be on the same side’ and all appointees in the Trump II Administration would need to prove their “fidelity and loyalty” to President Trump.

General Caine differed in almost every way from a prior chairman, Gen. Mark A. Milley, who was very forthright in putting his arguments in front of Mr. Trump during his first administration. Gen. Milley saw his role as stopping the president from taking reckless actions. There were no Gen. Mattis or Gen. Kelley in the Situation Room when Mr Netanyahu made his presentation.

One of the persons absent from this meeting was Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for coordinating the intelligence of all 18 intelligence organisations (civil and defence). Instead, she was busy examining votes cast in the 2020 election in Georgia.

One wonders what she would have contributed if she were there. She has no experience in intelligence. She has never worked in the sector and has not served on any congressional intelligence committees. President Trump gave her the job because she defected from the Democratic Party when she lost to Biden in the primaries. She endorsed Trump. President Trump’s son-in-law was there in the meeting but not the Director of National Intelligence

Similarly, the most senior post the present Secretary of War, Peter Hegseth, ever held in the US Defence Forces was that of Major.

John Ratcliffe, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), described Netanyahu’s plan as “farcical.”

When Trump asked Gen. Caine about his views on Netanyahu’s plan, General Caine could only to manage say: “Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.” Gen. Caine knows he used to be an Air Force pilot before Trump rewarded him by making him a General.

According to Swan and Haberman, “General Caine was sober, laying out the risks and what the campaign would mean for munitions depletion. He offered no opinion; his position was that if Mr. Trump ordered the operation, the military would execute.”

The only person who expressed strong doubt about the venture was Vice President Vance.

Trump was mesmerised by the idea that he would be able to bring out regime change and be the catalyst for a democratic Iran. Netanyahu also played on Trump’s ever-present desire to seek revenge by reminding him that Iran had tried to assassinate him. At the end of the meeting, the President told the meeting, “I think we need to do it.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu knew then that he had succeeded in duping another President of the United States.

It is worth recalling here that Mr Benjamin Netanyahu had also previously duped President W Bush into attacking Iraq by feeding him false intelligence and painting Iraq as an existential threat.

In making a case for attacking Iraq, Netanyahu had also predicted that such an action would trigger an uprising in Iraq and would result in a democratic Iraq.

A prominent Israeli MP, Yossi Sarid, a member of the foreign affairs and defence committee which investigated the quality of Israeli intelligence on Iraq, said that his country's intelligence services knew claims that Saddam Hussein was capable of swiftly launching weapons of mass destruction were wrong but withheld the information from Washington.

Another member of the committee, Ehud Yatom, said Israel had told the Americans it believed the weapons existed but had not seen them.

Though Netanyahu commands strong support among US lawmakers, within the intelligence community and foreign policy professionals, whatever he says is greatly distrusted.

CONSEQUENCES OF TRUMP’S WAR BEFORE IT BEGAN

The US and Israel’s decision to attack Iran is unique, at least, in four respects.

First, all six Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait) pleaded with the US not to go to war with Iran but to give diplomacy more time which was yielding results. The pace of diplomatic progress was slow, as is the case with all complex negotiations. Nevertheless, this was a rare moment when all members of the GCC had the same view: they knew Iran might be a serious or even existential threat to them but Iran would always be there across the Gulf. They all knew they would be targetted by Iran. Similarly, all Gulf monarchies and the Pentagon knew Iran may choose to close the Strait of Hormuz at some point.

Second, the neither the US nor Israel briefed the NATO members of their decision to go war though they knew it would have serious adverse consequences for Europe. The latter was already suffering from anaemic economic growth, and both knew European countries relied heavily on the Middle East for their oil and gas needs. Netanyahu may not have wanted Trump to brief NATO members because he knew they would oppose it. Further, it would not have been difficult for Netanyahu to convince Trump not to brief the US’s European allies because on numerous occasions, Trump had shown utter contempt for them, and he thought US military was fully capable of undertaking the task without the help of NATO countries whom he had repeatedly derided as Paper Tigers.

In an interview with Britain's The Daily Telegraph, the US president said “I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.” Even during the first term, on countless occasions, he threatened to pull out of NATO.

Third, Trump has repeatedly expressed surprise over Iran’s decision to retaliate against Gulf monarchies, including by targeting civilian sites. Everyone, especially the Pentagon and the Gulf countries, largely anticipated such a response. This was one of the primary reasons they opposed the US-Israeli war with Iran. Despite what President Trump says publicly, he was explicitly briefed by the intelligence organisations that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz and that US bases in Gulf monarchies will come under attack.

Fourth, President Trump never took into consideration (a) how his actions taken on behalf of Israel, would affect the rest of world in terms of inflation, shortage of oil and gas necessary to run factories and cook at home, food production due to scarcity of fertilisers, and all those items that are made of plastic or use plastic for packaging; and (b) how his actions will undermine the legitimacy of the US as global superpower.

BASELESS ASSERTIONS

President Trump has repeatedly said that he attacked Iran because its nuclear programme and missiles threatened the security of the US.

In his State of the Union Address (24 February 2026), making a case for attacking Iran, Trump said that Iran was actively building advanced capabilities and working on long-range missiles that could "soon reach the United States of America".

This alarming narrative was deliberately crafted to establish a scenario of "imminent threat" to suburban America. But these assertions do not survive even a cursory scrutiny.

Senator Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, (and is one of the most prominent and reliable legislative allies of President Trump and the MAGA movement) during the Annual Worldwide Threats hearing on 18 March 2026, produced a so-called independent security analyst’s report. It stated that Iran would be able to produce Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) capable of hitting American cities within 6 months. Both CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard refused to endorse that assessment.

They saw no change in Iran’s missile capabilities before war. This is how The New York Times summarised their evidence:

“Two top intelligence officials directly contradicted one of the Trump administration’s justifications for going to war with Iran, repeating on Wednesday the intelligence community’s conclusion that Iran was years away from developing missiles capable of hitting the United States.”

The Arms Control Association, a national non-partisan Washington-based organization, in its brief of March 3, 2026 stated:

“there is no evidence to suggest that Iran was on the verge of developing a ballistic missile capable of targeting the United States. In the wake of the negotiation of the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran announced a voluntary range limit of 2,000 kilometers for its ballistic missiles. Tehran appears to still be generally adhering to that limit.”

Mr Joe Kent, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center and a Trump appointee, resigned on March 17, 2026, citing his opposition to the Iran war and what he thought was Israel’s influence over the Trump administration’s policies. In a social media post, Joe Kent wrote, “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran”. He went on to say: “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Similarly, the Trump Administration’s assertion that Iran was a week away from developing a nuclear bomb also does not stand scrutiny.

Ms Andrea Stricker, known for her highly technical expertise in WMD proliferation and a deputy director of the Nonproliferation Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (Washington DC-based think tank), wrote on May 6, 2026 that the estimates Iran could possess an atom bomb were based on improbable assumptions. This assumes building a bomb quickly, without rigorous testing or a sophisticated detonation system.

Stricker goes on to say:

“Although Iran may still technically access some HEU (highly enriched uranium) stocks, President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that the United States and Israel maintain round-the-clock surveillance of the destroyed or damaged Natanz, Fordow, and Esfahan tunnel facilities and will strike anyone attempting excavation or entry. Tehran would confront major difficulties enriching HEU to WGU (weapon grade uranium), since its four enrichment facilities were destroyed, heavily damaged, or rendered inaccessible…Israel eliminated most of Iran’s centrifuge supply chain and destroyed the Ardakan uranium mining and milling facility, while the United States and Israel targeted Esfahan’s conversion capabilities. Jerusalem also targeted Iran’s plutonium route to nuclear weapons during both conflicts.”

Mentioning two unnamed sources, The Times of Israel reported that there have been no changes, “to an unclassified 2025 US Defence Intelligence Agency assessment that Iran could take until 2035 to develop a “militarily viable intercontinental ballistic missile” (ICBM) from its existing satellite-lofting space-launch vehicles (SLV).

“One source said that even if China or North Korea, which closely cooperate with Iran, provided technological assistance, Iran would probably take up to eight years at the earliest to produce “something that is actually ICBM level and operational.”

When the New York Times correspondents spoke to various American and European government officials, international weapons monitoring groups and looked at various reports from American intelligence agencies, they came across a very different picture of the urgency of the Iran threat than the one painted by the White House. They concluded that all three of the above-mentioned claims are either false or not supported by the available evidence.

When questioned by a reporter on February 25, 2026, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio conceded that there was no evidence the Iranians were currently enriching nuclear fuel.

In a statement authored by its director-general Rafael Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it currently had “no indication” that any of Iran’s nuclear installations were damaged or hit by either Israel or the US. These include the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a research reactor in Tehran, and other nuclear fuel cycle facilities.

Trump started a war that was illegal on all four counts: (a) he did not have the authorisation of the UN to attack Iran; (b) He did not seek the permission of his own Congress; (c) Iran was not threatening the US in any way; and (d) Iran’s nuclear programme was not a threat because none of Iran’s site associated with its nuclear programme were attacked soon after the war stated.

The real aim of Trump’s war was regime change and installation of a pliant administration that would be at least friendly, if not subservient, to Israel.

Trump was truly surprised that even after the US and Israel had killed so many religious and political leaders (legal experts consider these as illegal acts or war crimes), and top defence personnel, that it did not trigger an immediate domestic uprising or the collapse of the Islamic Republic.

FLAWED ASSUMPTIONS

There are four big collateral casualties of the US-Israel and Iran War: (a) all six Gulf States were targetted by Iran, especially the UAE. Qatar suffered most economically followed by Bahrain and Kuwait (b) the credibility of the US as a security guarantor to the Gulf monarchies; (c) legitimacy of the US as a global superpower; and (d) Washington’s soft power.

Fearing that South Vietnam’s President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu might meet the same fate as Ngô Đình Diệm, talking to the journalist, William Buckley, over the phone, Henry Kissinger commented, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

Kissinger’s words will ring true to the rulers and inhabitants of all six Gulf states.

Between them, the Gulf States host more than 13 major U.S. naval and military bases and facilities. Perhaps more than 20, according to some reports. Instead of working as deterrents against an enemy attack, these facilities became prime targets for Iranian missiles and drones, and each was substantially damaged.

The Gulf States unanimously counselled the US not to start this war. When the war started the Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE wanted the US to completely neutralise the threat, ie, totally degrade Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear infrastructures and remove its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. They failed on both counts.

Put simply, the monarchs of all Gulf States found the US to be an unreliable security partner/ guarantor.

All Gulf States regularly spend many hundreds of billions of dollars buying expensive defence equipment (jet fighters, reconnaissance systems, missile launchers, missile interceptors, missiles and bombs, munitions of all kinds, etc.) in the hope that the US will stand by them in their hour of need. They have also invested several trillion dollars in the US economy.

By following this strategy, the Arab Emirs and Sheikhs thought they had bought foolproof security. However, this model of security was flawed in two fundamental ways:

1. Iran and the US have been at loggerheads for more than 47 years, ever since the Shah of Iran fled the country in June, 1979; and
2. If ever the US had to choose between Israel and its Gulf allies, it would always look after Israel’s interests first.

These two defects in the Gulf States’ security achitecture have been apparent for nearly half a century or ever since they entered into these defence arrangements. Let me elaborate on this proposition.

US HAS HISTORICALLY PRIORITISED ISRAEL’S INTERESTS

During the present war with Iran, the United States actively prioritised supplying and deploying missile interceptors to protect Israel over its Gulf Arab allies.

According to The Washington Post, the US is reported to have fired more interceptors to protect Israel than Israel did to protect itself. The UAE and Saudi Arabia could only express frustration. The Gulf states were told there was a shortage of interceptors. Hence, they felt betrayed and had to seek help from such countries as Australia, Italy, Ukraine, etc.

The US’s preference for Israel over any other country in the Middle East is not a Trump phenomenon. The US would have behaved exactly in the same way under Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, or Joe Biden. Perhaps, Presidents Carter and Obama, both aberrations from the norm in their own way, might have had a more balanced approach.

In spite of pleas of every Arab country in the Middle East, no matter how tightly allied that country was or is with the US, the latter has looked the other way or confined itself to making some half-hearted,vacuous comments that carried no meaning and were never followed by any punitive measures when it came to Israel’s transgressions or blatant breaking of international laws or committing genocide. The United States has connived with Israel inwhatever policies Israel wishes to pursue towards the Palestinians.

Immediately after the Six-Day War in 1967, under Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Israel started building illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, on many occasions with the funds received as US aid. Washington acknowledged that they were illegal settlements, but no US Administration has ever taken any action. The US never barred any Israeli politician from entering the US to show its displeasure; never imposed any economic sanctions or halted the delivery of weapons to Israel, or cut its aid budget, or sanctioned any US citizen for providing aid to Israel to build these illegal settlements.

When the Israeli Defence Forces were committing war crimes and perpetrating genocide on gigantic scale in the Gaza Strip, as has been been recorded by many Jewish scholars of holocaust, and was weaponising medical aid and delivery of food, the Biden and Trump Administrations continued to supply whatever weapon systems Israel requested (for a detailed discussion please see my third article in this series that deals with how the US has further destroyed its legitimacy as a global superpower by its Iran misadventures).

In May 2019, four ships (2 Saudi- and 2 UAE-flagged) near the strategically vital Port of Fujairah (the UAE) were sabotaged in international waters. All the evidence pointed to Iran as a perpetrator. Instead of taking a decisive military action, the US response was confined to rhetorical condemnations. A lack of military response deeply unnerved both countries.

Similarly, in September 2019, Houthi rebels (aligned with Iran) attacked Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq and Khurais oil processing facilities. It disrupted more than half of Saudi Arabia’s oil output. The attack originated from Iran. The Trump Administration (Mark I) took no action.

The US’s responses to the above two incidents were in stark contrast to an aggressive, multi-year campaign of direct military action it took against the Houthls when they tried to disrupt maritime trade through the Bab-el-Mandeb and Red Sea, aimed at hurting Israel.

President George W. Bush granted the status of Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA) to Bahrain and Kuwait in 2002 and 2004, respectively. Biden extended the same status to Qatar in 2022. But all these DCAs and security pacts came to nothing in times of their need. The interests of Israel prevailed solely.

B NEW SECURITY ARCHITECTURE

Saudi Arabia and the UAE play an oversized role in the global energy market and in the world of international finance through their sovereign wealth funds. But the events have shown that the Gulf monarchies remains fundamentally at the mercy of the US for their security against an external aggressor. The “oil for security” model has become irrelevant. This is a weakness they must address.

But it does not mean they should ditch the US protective umbrella. They will still need the US as their security partner as long as the region remains unstable because only the US has the capacity for the large-scale capabilities required to manage integrated missile defence, maritime coordination in the Gulf region reinforced by conventional deterrence.

During this conflict, China demonstrated that it is not eager to get militarily involved in the region for fear of jeopardising its trade links. As a result of the Ukraine-Russia War, NATO members will ensure Russia’s defence capabilities remain stretched for the foreseeable future.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia are the only two GCC members with any kind of capacity to defend themselves or come to the aid of other four Gulf States. To forge a security architecture that is not solely dependent on the US they need to work together.

In immediate terms, the war has cost the Gulf States billions of dollars in lost export income, and damage to their oil and gas production facilities, airports, hotels, data centres, etc. and the cost of supporting stranded travellers.

Long-term costs are even more horrendous: the Gulf States are bound to see some flight of capital. Their economic growth will slow down in the foreseeable future as they will find it more difficult to attract new foreign investment. Nearly 17% of Qatar’s gas production capacity was destroyed in attacks by Iran. All Gulf States will need funds to repair their economy and damaged infrastructure. They might also see the flight of some talent necessary for crucial industries. It will largely depend on how relations between Iran and the US pan out in future.

All Gulf States will face budgetary pressure at least for three reasons: (a) Slower economic growth; (b) the closure of the Strait of Hormuz during the war will accelerate a worldwide trend towards installing more renewable energy capacity and battery storage systems; and (c) while their revenue contracts, they will need to boost defence spending.

It is too early to say what kind of security architecture will emerge in the aftermath of this war. What is certain is that the status quo will not survive. Emerging economic and trade relations will also play an important role in shaping this architecture.

It is very likely that the new security architecture may be similar to the one evolving in Europe, where the US is demanding that NATO members be as much self-sufficient as possible and as soon as possible. I describe below what future security arrangements may look like, if the Gulf monarchies chose to rise above their internecine disputes.

THE US INDIFFERENCE TO THE GULF STATES’ CONCERNS

This magnitude of failure, as outlined above, has fundamentally shattered the Gulf States' trust in American security guarantees. Both allies and foes of the US in other parts of the world would have also noticed it.

The Israel-United States and Iran War has brought them face-to-face with several ugly realities:

It demonstrated their:

• Their utter political impotence: they were neither consulted before the war started nor after during the ceasefire negotiations.

• If there was any doubt before then the US-Israel and Iran War must have put it to rest once and for all that

• The US is an unreliable and unpredictable security partner; and
• it will prioritise Israel’s interests over their interests.

• The US bases on their soil or in their territorial waters made them prime targets for anyone fighting with the US.
• It has shattered the illusion that they offered a politically stabile environment, their main marketing point.
• It has been proved that the chosen model to diversify their economies (ie, attracting data centres, artificial intelligence companies, promoting themselves as a regional banking and finance hub, attracting tourists by hosting grand prix, football and golf tournaments, building branches of Disney and Guggenheim Museum, etc.) is akin to living in a glass palace, and above all
• It showed them the cost of not being good neighbours to each other.

THREE OPTIONS

The Gulf countries have three options:

• Maintain the ante-war status quo and accept that their needs will always be subservient to Israel’s demands on the US;

• They normalise their relations with Israel knowing fully well that (a) in post-Iran War Middle East the Abraham Accord (ie, normalising relations with Israel and ignoring how Israel behaves in Palestine and towards the Palestinians) has become out-of-date; (b) Israel wants to dominate its perceived enemies in the Middle East; and (c) it is a revanchist regional power aiming to establish "Greater Israel" or “Eretz Yisrael HaShlemah”. In other words, accept a joint US-Israel supremacy and military protection.

• Knowing that the above two options will bring them into constant conflict with Iran (which also aspires a regional leader’s role) and make them the target of opprobrium of Muslims living elsewhere in the world (because they would have betrayed the concept of Ummat al-Islām), they try to follow policies that will allow them some control on their destiny and an ability to shape the events in their neighbourhood.

The first two options are self-explanatory. Let me briefly elaborate what they need to do amongst themselves to implement the third option.

NO MILITARY SOLUTION TO IRAN

Unless the Islamic regime collapses under the conflicting pressures it now faces (eg, need to revive the economy, rebuild the destroyed civilian infrastructure (eg, hospitals, universities, bridges, etc.), rebuild their missile infrastructure and house them even stronger silos, finance their proxies, etc., there is no military solution to Iran.

While the consensus among the Middle East experts is that post-war Iran is an emboldened nation. On the contrary, I feel given these conflicting demands on the Islamic regime, there is more than 50% possibility it may collapse in the next 3- 5 years. An unstable or ungovernable Iran is not in the interests of any Gulf monarchy.

The important thing to remember is that no matter to what extent Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear infrastructures are degraded, no matter how many of its top scientists or political leaders are target-killed, the Islamic regime or its successor will still retain all scientific know-how Iran has gained over the years.

Further, history tells us that it is seldom that a disruptive political or religious ideology has been eradicated by military means or coercive policies. The Roman Empire could not eradicate Christianity by imprisoning and torturing its followers. World War II ended nearly 80 years ago, but the Nazi ideology still survives. When Indians decided to seek independence, not only could the British Empire not resist the tide, but it also led to the collapse of the entire Empire. Both the Soviet Union and the US had to withdraw from Afghanistan in humiliating circumstances. The two provinces of originally conceived Pakistan (East and West Pakistan) could not reconcile their cultural and political differences, and the divorce was violent and bloody. The list is a very long one.

NEED TO SORT OUT INTERNECINE DIFFERENCES

For them to be effective in forcing/persuading/encouraging Iran to moderate its behaviour towards them and not undertake any subversive activities against their respective governments or foment trouble internally, all six Gulf States need to speak to Iran with a unified voice, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The immediate purpose of the AlUla Declaration of January 2021, signed by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members,was to end their ineffective economic blockade of Qatar: the latter was able to neutralise it by procuring fresh vegetables, dairy and food products, poultry and other items largely from Iran and Türkiye but also from other countries. In fact, Qatar used this adversity to enhance its food security by developing its dairy industry from scratch. Thus, the Saudis lost an export market forever.

The signatories also pledged to protect regional stability, counter terrorism, and respect state sovereignty.

The AlUla Declaration offers a mechanism to sort out their territorial claims against each other by negotiations so that they can work towards an integrated security architecture.

However, speaking with a unified voice does not mean consensus on every issue. For example, instead of seeing them as acts of recalcitrance, they should look at Oman’s pursuit of a neutral foreign policy or Qatar’s policy of talking to all state and non-state players in the region as their strength. These non-conformities allow them more access points (or diplomatic flexibility) to pursue their foreign policy goals and thus reduce reliance on the US.

But they do need to sort out the differences that could allow Iran to create wedge between two or more GCC members. For example, the UAE’s differences with Saudi Arabia over Yemen and where Saudis support the faction opposed by the UAE. Ditto over Sudan.

It is worth remembering that it was Oman’s neutrality and Qatar keeping its diplomatic channels with Iran open that enabled the US to close this war with a face-saving solution because Trump realised if he pursued a military solution to open the Strait of Hormuz, the US Navy might lose one or more destroyers and hundreds of its elite soldiers along the mountainous Iranian coastline with an uncertain outcome. Pakistan took the initiative and provided the venue and served as Saudi Arabia and China’s proxy.

DEFENCE FORCES FOR EXTERNAL AGGRESSION

To reduce their reliance on the US umbrella, the Gulf countries, at least three of them, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar, need to organise their defence forces to fight external threats. They are, presently, structured to ensure regime survival, ie, to counter any coup attempts.

The regular Saudi Arabian Armed Forces (under the Ministry of Defence) are separate from the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG). The latter recruits exclusively from Bedouin tribes that have historically been loyal to the ruling House of Saudi Arabia. The two are built as parallel military forces exactly like the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (now locked in a civil war for control of Sudan).

Following the 2011 Arab Spring protests, Bahrain put its its coup-proofing strategies on a fast track.

Here again the UAE has been the first off the rank. In the 1990s and 2000s, the UAE consolidated the separate emirate-level forces into a highly capable, unified federal military. It introduced mandatory national conscription for all Emirati men and deployed its forces in Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya to give them some battlefield experience.

INTEGRATED AIR DEFENCES

As we know, during the war, Iran targetted all six Gulf monarchies. Oman attracted the fewest hits: 8 times, and the UAE was hit more than 2800 times. All of them had to put their air defence system on high alert. About 75% of Abu Dhabi’s stockpile of interceptors was depleted.

So this is one area where all six monarchies should be able to cooperate and take steps towards integrating their air defence infrastructure to the extent that they can at least come to the aid of a fellow GCC member if they are not willing to have an integrated/unified command system.

The next logical step would be for them to coordinate acquisition of these items and perhaps have a common budget for these things. Similarly, when further thinking about a joint venture to localise production defence equipment they may avoid duplication of production facilities, eg, if the UAE has decided to manufacture armoured vehicles suitable for hot desert conditions (after buying a majority stake in Estonia-based Milrem Robotics or building its own drones after taking over Poland's Flaris) then Saudi Arabia may think of localising production of some other item.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have a NATO-style mutual defence pact. During the US-Iran War, Pakistan deployed 8,000 additional troops, a fighter jet squadron, and air defence systems in Saudi Arabia.

The UAE recently signed an agreement with India but it only provides logistical and intelligence support and technology transfer or co-production of defence hardware. The UAE seems intensely interested in procurement or co-production of India's Akash surface-to-air missile systems, BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, and LCA Tejas fighter jets.

ENHANCING CONNECTIVITY

Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are trying to rapidly expand their overland oil pipeline capacities to minimise their reliance on the Strait of Hormuz.

The state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) is constructing a major new West-East Pipeline. It will allow an additional 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) to be exported via the Fujairah port terminal, which is situated directly on the Gulf of Oman and bypasses the Strait of Hormuz. In May 2026, ADNOC confirmed the project was already 50% complete.

Saudi Arabia’s ARAMCO is trying to boost, expand, and optimise the capacity of its East-West Pipeline, which brings the Saudi oil to the Yanbu port terminal on the Red Sea

Pipelines will not benefit all GCC members. They may be able to increase export oil, but they cannot export other things, eg, fertilisers, plastic, aluminium, dates, dairy products, poultry, etc. So they need to give priority to complete the long- standing GCC Rail project by linking existing rail projects in Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE with the remaining Gulf monarchies and extending the network further.

MARSHALL PLAN FOR IRAN WITH NON-AGGRESSION PACT

The paragraph six of the MOU is reminiscent of the Marshall Plan devised by the United States to assist the war-ravaged economies of 16 European countries (Britain, France and Italy were its three biggest beneficiaries) or various plans through which the US funded Japan's Postwar Rebuilding. The paragraph 6 states the US will undertake “with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least US$ 300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development” of Iran. For “regional partners” read the GCC States.

13000 or so targets struck by the US and Israeli forces have devastated Iran. Iran looks as if it suffered from a nationwide shallow earthquake. It will need a lot of assistance before it can stand on its feet, and many years.

This offers the Gulf monarchies an opportunity to extend a hand of friendship to Iran to sign a comprehensive non-aggression treaty with all six members, which clearly states that Iran respects the sovereignty of all six GCC States and will desist from undertaking any overt or covert activity that will cause social disharmony. In other words, encourage Iran to moderate its behaviour. In return, the Gulf States could provide aid (to be closely monitored by the US) exclusively for civilian projects so that it will not be used to fund any activities of the IRG or any of its intelligence organisations or radical religious schools or Madrasahs. If Iran behaves as a friendly neighbour, the Gulf States could offer Iranian citizens an opportunity to work in selected sectors (where security clearance is not needed), eg, hospitality, retail, health, etc.

There are unconfirmed reports that the Saudis are discussing a non-aggression pact with Iran along the lines of Helsinki process.

Vidya S. Sharma advises clients on country risks and technology-based joint ventures. He has contributed numerous articles for such prestigious newspapers as: The Canberra Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age (Melbourne), The Australian Financial Review, The Economic Times (India), The Business Standard (India), EU Reporter (Brussels), East Asia Forum (Canberra), The Business Line (Chennai, India), The Hindustan Times (India), The Financial Express (India), The Daily Caller (US. He can be contacted at: [email protected].

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