Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

Founded in 1981 in Abu Dhabi, the GCC unites Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman as a political and economic bloc. It was created explicitly as a counterweight to Iran after the Islamic Revolution, though internal disputes (including a 3.5-year Saudi-led blockade of Qatar) have repeatedly tested cohesion. Member states collectively hold roughly 30 per cent of global proven oil reserves. GCC members collectively invoked UN Charter Article 51 self-defence rights at the 50th Extraordinary Ministerial Council in 2026, citing Iranian attacks on civilian airports, oil facilities, and desalination plants across the region.

The six-state bloc has been split throughout the 2026 conflict between collective self-defence and individual survival calculus. Bahrain absorbed 198 projectiles in six days; Kuwait's refineries were struck twice; Ras Laffan LNG was hit; Saudi Arabia expelled Iranian envoys and cited Petroline as a strategic Hormuz bypass. GCC states had not confirmed attendance at the April 2026 Paris 51-nation Hormuz Coalition or the Northwood planning summit, reflecting the bloc's reluctance to join a Coalition the United States itself declined to join. When Iran and Oman signed a joint governance committee over Hormuz strait fees on 23 June (superseding the European Northwood multilateral framework), the GCC faced a structural challenge to its own waters without a coordinated response.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in the UAE on 23 June declaring Washington would not accept Hormuz tolls, then proceeded to Kuwait and then a GCC session in Bahrain on 25 June: the first formal Gulf multilateral response to the Islamabad MOU, convened to reassure monarchies over a shifting regional power balance under the memorandum framework. Gulf governments' core concern is that the MOU carries no limits on Iran's Ballistic Missiles, a proposed $300 billion reconstruction fund, and provisions that could expand Tehran's regional influence; risks are amplified in Bahrain, whose Sunni leadership fears a well-funded Iran could foment unrest among its majority Shia population. On 21 July, Qatar's compensation claim to the UN Security Council explicitly invoked Resolution 2817, the GCC-sponsored measure Bahrain brought to the Council in March, evidence that the resolution remains the bloc's primary diplomatic instrument against Iran even as GCC states manage the parallel Islamabad MOU track.