For years, Gulf states have faced a familiar problem: how to contain the risks posed by Iran without allowing rivalry to turn into open war.
The sources of tension were never difficult to identify. Iran’s nuclear programme, ballistic missiles, ties to armed groups across the region and the uncertainty surrounding the Strait of Hormuz have shaped Gulf security calculations for decades.
The challenge was always to keep those risks within limits.
That produced a pragmatic approach across much of the Gulf. Deterrence mattered, but so did dialogue. The US remained the main external security partner, while Gulf states invested heavily in their own defences. Channels with Tehran stayed open. Trade continued where political conditions allowed it.
The ongoing war showed how fragile that arrangement had become.
Once missiles and drones reach Gulf states, and shipping and energy flows become part of the confrontation, it is much harder to believe that the Iranian challenge can be managed through deterrence and de-escalation alone.
The question now is not how to return to what existed before the war. It is what kind of relationship with Iran can be built after it.
One weakness in earlier policy was the tendency to talk about an “Iran strategy”, as if the relationship presented one problem and therefore required one answer.
In reality, Iran appears very differently depending on the issue at hand. It is a military power, a nuclear actor, a central player in the Strait of Hormuz and a state with ties to armed groups across the region. It is also a permanent neighbour, connected to the Gulf by geography, trade and long-standing economic links.
Those issues cannot be dealt with in the same way.
Air defence may stop a missile, but it cannot settle the future of navigation through Hormuz. Economic relations cannot deter an attack. Dialogue may reduce the chances of miscalculation, but it cannot replace military preparedness. Nor can military power on its own create workable maritime rules or sustain an economic relationship.
The next phase of Gulf policy may therefore need to be more selective: firmer in some areas, more open in others, and less inclined to let confrontation in one file determine the entire relationship.
In other words, the challenge is in shaping a difficult neighbourhood.
The aim is not rapprochement for its own sake. Nor is it to assume that decades of rivalry can be talked away. It is simply to stop one dispute from consuming everything else.
Military tensions may remain serious while political channels stay open. Maritime arrangements can still be discussed even if disagreements over missiles and armed groups remain unresolved. Economic ties should not depend entirely on whether the political relationship happens to be good or bad at a particular moment.
During the war, that separation largely disappeared.
Iran’s confrontation with the US and other actors spilled into the Gulf, leaving states in the region to bear part of the cost of a conflict they had neither initiated nor wanted.
This should now become a central subject in any Gulf-Iranian dialogue: how can Iran be prevented from shifting the costs of its wars with others on to the Gulf?
The American military presence in several Gulf states clearly complicates the matter. From Tehran’s perspective, the distinction between hosting US forces and participating in US military operations can narrow very quickly during wartime.
Yet Gulf states cannot accept the reverse argument either: that the presence of American forces on their territory gives Iran a standing justification for targeting them whenever Tehran and Washington enter into confrontation.
That ambiguity has become too costly.
This is not a call for Gulf neutrality, and it does not require a rethink of existing alliances. But clearer limits are needed. What actually makes a state a direct party to a war? When does the use of a military base cross the line into participation in hostilities? Which civilian and economic facilities should remain outside the conflict?
There may be no easy agreement on these questions. Leaving them undefined, however, makes it more likely that the next crisis will reproduce the same dangers.
Hormuz raises a similar problem.
The issue is no longer simply whether ships can pass through the strait. It is also about who sets the rules, what rights littoral states can exercise and whether one side can impose new conditions on commercial traffic.
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Chief officer Ankit Goyal recalls the deafening impact on his cargo ship when missiles and drone attacks struck nearby ships when the Iran war erupted. All photos: Ankit Goyal -
The cargo vessel Manali was carrying 24 sailors from India, Bangladesh and Vietnam -
More than 20,000 seafarers were stranded on commercial ships when the Iran-US war began with maritime organisations pleading for safety of seafarers -
There have been 17 seafarer deaths in 56 attacks in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, according to UN International Maritime Organisation figures -
During the initial days of the war, Iranian naval ships sailed close to commercial vessels to shield them from missile attacks -
On most days the sky was thick with smoke from attacks on ships in the conflict zone
Opening the strait during a crisis solves the immediate disruption. It does not prevent the problem from returning.
A more durable arrangement would require practical rules: communication between naval forces, procedures for dealing with incidents, protection for commercial vessels and greater clarity over what constitutes hostile action.
Any agreement, though, is only as useful as its implementation.
With Iran, the difficulty is not always reaching an understanding. It is knowing whether the state can ensure that the institutions with authority on the ground will observe it, particularly when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plays a direct role in the most sensitive security files.
For Gulf states, that should be the test of any future arrangement on Hormuz.
The real measure will not be the language of the communique. It will be what happens afterwards. Are ships still detained? Are navigation rules respected? Does the agreement survive the first serious incident?
There is another question Gulf policy should ask more often: what does Iran actually stand to lose if it returns to escalation?
Deterrence is usually framed around punishment. If the cost of aggression is high enough, the logic goes, an adversary will think twice.
But states also show restraint because they have interests that they do not want to sacrifice.
That is where economics matters.
The choice does not have to be between total isolation and opening Gulf markets without conditions. There is a middle ground.
Trade, investment and economic connectivity can grow when behaviour improves and be reduced when it deteriorates.
This is not based on the assumption that commerce will transform Iran’s political system or settle its disputes with the Gulf. There is little evidence to justify that expectation.
The logic is more limited. If Iran benefits materially from a stable Gulf, instability begins to carry an extra cost.
That gives Tehran something to preserve, not only something to fear.
The US will remain central to Gulf security. Its military, intelligence and technological capabilities are difficult to replace. But Gulf states also know that Washington acts according to its own assessment of American interests, and those interests will not always coincide with theirs.
The useful debate, then, is not about whether America is staying or leaving. It is about whether Gulf states can preserve greater room for their own decisions within that partnership.
That matters in dealing with Iran.
As long as Tehran sees Gulf countries mainly as extensions of US policy, the region will remain exposed to the risk of becoming the arena in which Iran tries to impose costs on Washington.
A Gulf policy towards Iran should therefore begin with Gulf interests: what directly threatens the security of Gulf states, and what belongs primarily to Iran’s disputes with other powers?
Iran is not going away. Neither are the disagreements with it.
Nor is it realistic, after the war, to assume that relations can simply return to the old status quo. Trust has been damaged and security calculations have changed.
Still, the Gulf does not have to choose between reconciliation and permanent hostility.
Some issues will require deterrence. Others will have to be negotiated. Limited co-operation may remain possible in areas where interests overlap. Some disputes may stay unresolved for years.
What matters is preventing one crisis from becoming a crisis of the entire relationship.
For years, Gulf policy concentrated on managing the Iranian risk. The next stage will be harder. It will require building a relationship with an Iran that will remain a competitor and, in some areas, a threat, while also remaining a neighbour that cannot be wished away.
The disagreements will continue. Crises will come again.
But every crisis does not have to become a war, and every war Iran fights with others does not have to become a war on the Gulf.
