The Gulf’s strategic moment must not be squandered. As the United States executed “Operation Midnight Hammer” — a dramatic but limited strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure — Iran retaliated by breaching what many in the Gulf hoped were implicit red lines. By launching a missile attack targeting Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Tehran broke with its past caution and directly implicated the Gulf in its confrontation with the United States. This was a calculated message: the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’s new leadership appears to want to disrupt the predictability of past escalation cycles, raise the cost of containment, and pressure Washington through its most valuable regional partners.
Yet even this strike has been deftly recontextualized. Qatar used the incident not as cause for rupture but as leverage. Ironically, it took an Iranian missile strike on Iran’s main interlocutor with the US to get to a ceasefire. Rather than treat the attack as a hostile act against the country, the Qatari leadership translated the escalation into an opportunity — pressuring President Trump to endorse a fragile, if brittle, ceasefire. This episode reflects a deeper truth: Gulf states are not merely regional buffers; they are now central brokers and force multipliers for US statecraft in the region.
Qatar has created space for diplomacy to re-emerge, albeit cautiously. This is in stark contrast to many other regional players – most importantly Israel – whose strategic culture tends to dictate policies of strength through force where policies of an eye-for-an-eye tend to leave everyone blind. Even if the Gulf States were considerably bigger and more powerful militarily, their dependency on positive neutrality would still lead them down the avenue of dialogue over confrontation. GCC countries would like to be net contributors to a US-led regional security framework rather than a net benefactor.
For President Trump, whose leadership is increasingly defined by the rhythms of Truth Social rather than structured policy, the Gulf has also become indispensable in translating impulse into outcome. The Gulf states — particularly Qatar and Oman — are not just intermediaries but interpreters, formalizing social media pronouncements into coherent diplomatic pathways. On the nuclear front, they have reportedly been instrumental in helping US envoys design a framework that could be acceptable to Tehran, balancing face-saving language with core non-proliferation goals. Their proximity to both Washington and Tehran allows them to propose creative formulas that avoid the rigid binary of surrender or war.
The odd actor out remains Israel. As Netanyahu doubles down on military escalation in a bid to secure his domestic standing and derail any Iran-US rapprochement, Tel Aviv is pursuing a maximalist strategy fundamentally at odds with Gulf pragmatism. While the Gulf seeks stability through integration and deterrence, Israel under Netanyahu appears committed to permanent crisis. Here, again, Trump holds a unique position: only he, with his rapport with Netanyahu, can rein in Israel’s strategic overreach. But he will only do so if the Gulf states try to manage him – calibrating his instincts, offering off-ramps, and demonstrating that containment, not regime change, serves American interests.
The Gulf states must now go beyond quiet shuttle diplomacy. They must use their access, their economic leverage, and their growing geopolitical weight to shape a new modus vivendi in the region — one where escalation is capped, diplomacy is the default lever of power, and military force above or below the threshold of war an act of last resort. The Gulf’s obsession with stability and prosperity as perquisites for trade and business makes them more likely architects of a regional order built around entanglement and interdependence. If they surrender this effort to those who have a comparative advantage in military power, they will find themselves not just cleaning up the ruins but living within them.
Dr. Andreas Krieg is the director of the London-based political risk firm MENA analytica and an associate professor in the School of Security Studies at King’s College London. His research focuses on sub-threshold warfare and network-centric statecraft where state and non-state activity meet. With over 20 years of experience living and working in the Middle East, Dr. Krieg has developed a deep understanding of the region’s security dynamics, political economies, and strategic cultures. He is the author of multiple books including Subversion and Surrogate Warfare.
