Gulf States (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain)

None of the six participated in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, yet Iranian forces struck civilian infrastructure across the region regardless. Iranian Parliament speaker Ghalibaf threatened to render Gulf energy infrastructure irreversibly unusable. Brent Crude surged to $102-104 a barrel in March before easing; by 21 July it had fallen to $88.26, even as weekly Strait of Hormuz vessel transits dropped 66 per cent to 53.

The six Gulf Cooperation Council states (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain) host the bulk of US military infrastructure in the Middle East, including CENTCOM's forward headquarters and the US Fifth Fleet. Their geography places them between Iran and the international order, making them security clients of Washington and energy partners of Beijing simultaneously.

Four months on, collective bloc statements have given way to separate national tracks. Qatar filed a dated compensation claim against Iran at the UN Security Council on 21 July, citing Resolution 2817 and reserving its Article 51 right of self-defence. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia separately report Patriot interceptor stocks running close to empty, with production queues booked years out. The Gulf States remain involuntary belligerents, absorbing retaliation for a war none of them joined, but the response to it is now running through individual capitals rather than a single collective one.