The Gulf region’s diplomatic push at present to prevent a spiral between the United States and Iran reflects a strategic reality that has toughened over the past decade. Even when Gulf states show apprehensions towards Iranian regional behaviour, they increasingly fear the consequences of sudden coercive escalation more than they fear the prolonged managed rivalry. The immediate backdrop is the intensified unrest in Iran and renewed American signalling for military options, where intentions are opaque, timelines are compressed, and misperception becomes a force multiplier.
Multiple Gulf states are pushing both the United States and Iran to step back from the brink, citing destabilisation in the region. This effort was coordinated, urgent, and directed at the emerging Gulf doctrine, the crisis insulation through diplomacy to reduce the probability that Gulf territory becomes the battlefield for the US-Iran confrontation.
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At the core of this is the structural vulnerability of Gulf states. The region has a significant American presence through its military bases within the range of Iranian missile systems. This underscores the density and strategic importance of bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, including major command-and-control functions of missile defence systems. This geography turns Gulf states into “frontline rear areas” that are critical for the American operations but are also the natural targets for Iranian retaliation. The significance of this was reinforced by recent precautionary measures around Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, with official Qatari statements acknowledging personnel movements as a response to growing regional tensions. Gulf diplomacy, therefore, is not altruistic mediation but is self-preservation aimed at preventing retaliatory logic from activating against Gulf infrastructure, urban centres, and energy facilities.
In all of this, Saudi Arabia’s role is particularly important because it signals how Riyadh’s threat perception has evolved. While Saudi–Iran rivalry remains a substantial threat, Saudi grand strategy is now heavily conditioned by domestic economic transformation imperatives that require regional peace and predictable risk factors. Saudi Arabia has cautioned against military escalation, while Gulf states have tried to ensure their territory is not used in any potential strike. This posture is also consistent with the China-brokered Saudi–Iran rapprochement in March 2023, which institutionalised a minimum framework for de-escalation even if it did not resolve the core disagreements. The strategic logic is that Riyadh can prefer an Iran that is constrained and deterred, but not an Iran that is collapsing and fragmented, which can destabilise the Gulf states’ economic plans.
Qatar’s official signalling is related to escalation being catastrophic, as it is the host of American military bases. Oman’s role is even more structurally embedded. Muscat has served as a discreet channel between Washington and Tehran in multiple episodes, including the backchannel diplomacy that preceded the 2015 nuclear negotiations. So, Oman’s enduring credibility lies in this fact because it preserves working relations with all sides. In this sense, Gulf diplomacy is not merely reactive—it relies on the fact that some states use leverage (access, basing, economic weight) and others provide mediation architecture (trusted channels, quiet facilitation).
From Washington’s perspective, the Gulf region’s push to de-escalate this crisis lay bare a persistent dilemma wherein the US retains the position of an unmatched security provider in the region. So, for Gulf states, this escalation also threatens their own security and economic viability. In order to refrain from this, they seek to shape American choices through denial of enabling conditions and calls for diplomacy. This matters because even the perception of imminent conflict can move disrupt commerce, economy, aviation and shipping patterns as well as trigger defensive redeployments. The broader point is that “grey zone” escalation already imposes economic and reputational costs on Gulf states aspiring to be global business hubs.
Tehran’s deterrence strategy has long rested on the ability to threaten the US regional assets and to raise the costs of coercion through retaliation risks. In the current environment, Iran has issued warnings about retaliation if attacked. Iran’s incentive structure in a high-pressure scenario is not purely strategic but also political. Internal unrest and elite cohesion pressures can encourage hardline signalling, while external threats can enable securitised crackdowns. This is why many regional actors fear that external military action may not produce the intended political outcomes and could instead deepen instability—the kind of experience the region associates with sudden regime shock scenarios.
For the Gulf states collectively, the crisis underscores the hedging strategy that blends security reliance on the United States with increasing insistence on autonomy. This is not “neutrality” between Washington and Tehran but selective alignment wherein the Gulf remains deeply tied to the American defence systems and deterrence umbrellas, but it seeks to prevent those ties from automatically converting its territory into a launchpad. There is a possibility of certain risk scenarios if the current de-escalation proves temporary. Firstly, crisis recurrence is likely because the drivers, i.e., the United States-Iran hostility, domestic instability dynamics in Iran, and regional proxy ecosystems, are structural rather than episodic. Secondly, miscalculation risk remains high because signalling is fragmented. The sanctions rhetoric can be interpreted as imminent intent even when they are meant as leverage or reassurance. Thirdly, the Gulf’s own diversification ambitions becomes susceptible to volatility. Even a brief spike in perceived risk can affect and undermine the Gulf region’s “post-oil” strategies.
So, the Gulf region’s current diplomacy can be best read as a form of maintaining the regional order, which is a pragmatic attempt to shape the behaviour of stronger external actors and contain the spillover of their rivalry. It also reveals Gulf priorities, highlighting a deeper transformation, i.e., the Gulf states are no longer willing to be the theatres where great power rivalries play out. They are projecting themselves as the regional actors that attempt to script de-escalation, enforce red lines about the use of their territory, and keep dialogue channels alive even with adversaries. Whether this succeeds in the short term will depend less on rhetoric and more on the durability of crisis communication mechanisms, which will allow Gulf states to remain security partners without becoming automatic targets.
The author is an assistant professor at Amity Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (AIDSS), Amity University, NOIDA.