The Gulf's Worst Fears: How a Fragile US-Iran Ceasefire Left America's Arab Allies Exposed

On April 7, 2026, less than two hours before President Donald Trump's deadline — after which he had promised to wipe out "a whole civilization" — the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, mediated by Pakistan [1]. The guns fell silent, at least on paper. But across the Persian Gulf, the six monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council greeted the announcement not with relief but with alarm.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman had just endured 40 days of Iranian missile and drone strikes that destroyed oil infrastructure, depleted their missile defense stockpiles, and killed civilians — most of them migrant workers who had no say in the political decisions that brought war to their doorsteps [2]. Now they faced a ceasefire whose terms remained murky, whose durability was uncertain, and whose ultimate shape could formalize Iranian leverage over the single most important chokepoint in global energy markets: the Strait of Hormuz [3].

What the Deal Says — and What It Doesn't

The ceasefire agreement itself remains largely unpublished. What the public knows comes from conflicting accounts issued by Washington and Tehran [4].

Trump announced the deal on Truth Social, stating that Iran had agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly 20% of the world's seaborne oil flows — as a precondition [5]. In exchange, the United States suspended military operations. A 45-day Phase 2 negotiation period will follow, channeled initially through Pakistan and finalized in Islamabad [4].

Iran, however, presented a substantially different picture. Tehran's 10-point plan, published across Iranian state media, calls on the United States to withdraw combat forces from the region, lift all sanctions, permit uranium enrichment, compensate Iran for war damages, and recognize Iranian authority over Hormuz transit [4][6]. On the central question of enrichment, Trump stated there would be "no uranium enrichment," while Iranian outlets reported the deal includes "acceptance of enrichment" — a contradiction neither side has resolved [4].

Washington has not publicly addressed several major provisions in Iran's published plan, including sanctions removal, the release of frozen Iranian assets, or a full U.S. troop withdrawal [4]. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the inclusion of Lebanon in the ceasefire framework, asserting that "the ceasefire does not include Lebanon" [4].

For Gulf states, the ambiguity is itself the threat. Any deal that lifts sanctions without addressing the economic damage absorbed by Gulf economies "will breed resentment that guarantees another crisis," according to analysis from the Gulf International Forum [7].

The Damage Already Done

The scale of destruction across the Gulf during the 40-day conflict reframes the ceasefire debate. This is not an abstract diplomatic exercise for Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, or Doha — it is an accounting of physical wreckage.

Following coordinated US-Israeli strikes on Iran beginning February 28, Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched retaliatory waves of missiles and drones at Gulf states. Between February 28 and March 18, Qatar alone was targeted by 203 missiles and 87 drones [8]. The UAE intercepted and destroyed 520 ballistic missiles, 2,221 drone attacks, and 26 cruise missiles using its THAAD and Patriot defense systems [8]. Iranian strikes caused widespread damage to oil and gas facilities, airports, and commercial sites across the region [2].

Qatar, one of the world's largest natural gas producers, said it will take years to restore output [2]. Oil production across Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE collectively dropped by 6.7 million barrels per day by March 10, and by at least 10 million barrels per day two days later [9]. Brent crude surged past $120 per barrel following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on March 4 [9], and WTI crude has climbed to $114 per barrel as of early April — up 86.7% year-over-year [10].

Source: FRED / EIA

Data as of Apr 6, 2026CSV

The maritime blockade also triggered what officials described as a "grocery supply emergency" across GCC states, which rely on the strait for over 80% of their caloric imports. By mid-March, 70% of the region's food imports were disrupted, causing consumer price spikes of 40–120% [9].

Missile Shields Running Dry

Among the most urgent concerns for Gulf defense planners is the depletion of their air defense interceptor stockpiles. By late March, Bahrain had expended an estimated 87% of its Patriot missile interceptor stocks, while the UAE and Kuwait had used roughly 75% of theirs [11][2]. Hours after the ceasefire announcement, Gulf countries were still scrambling to intercept Iranian missiles, raising immediate questions about the truce's enforceability [11].

Source: JINSA / Defence Security Asia

Data as of Mar 28, 2026CSV

The depletion problem underscores a structural dependency. The United States supplied half of all arms imports to the Middle East and North Africa between 2020 and 2024, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE as the top recipients — constituting nearly 20% of all global arms imports [12]. In March 2026, the Trump administration fast-tracked $16.5 billion in arms sales to the UAE, Jordan, and Kuwait, including $8.4 billion for the UAE covering drones, missiles, radar systems, and F-16 aircraft [13]. Separately, the administration approved roughly $7 billion for the UAE in Patriot PAC-3 missiles and CH-47 Chinook helicopters [14], and $9 billion in military sales to Saudi Arabia [15]. The State Department invoked an emergency waiver to bypass congressional review [16].

In May 2025, the White House announced what it called the "largest defense sales agreement in history" — a package of deals with Saudi Arabia worth nearly $142 billion [17].

Source: SIPRI Military Expenditure Database

Data as of Apr 1, 2025CSV

The JCPOA Precedent: Were Gulf Fears Justified?

Gulf states have been here before. When the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was signed, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain warned that Iran would use sanctions relief to fund its proxy network rather than moderate its behavior [18]. Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait were more supportive of the deal [18].

In retrospect, the skeptics had a reasonable case. The Royal United Services Institute assessed that, when evaluating Iran's behavior since 2015, Gulf governments felt "their predictions had been proven right, with Iran's nefarious influence across the region — whether in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria or Yemen, or in the waters of the Gulf and the Arabian Sea — intensifying over the past six years" [18]. Iran did continue funding Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi Shia militias throughout the JCPOA period, and its ballistic missile program advanced without constraint, since the deal focused narrowly on nuclear enrichment [19].

But the record is not one-sided. The JCPOA did succeed in rolling back Iran's nuclear program: Tehran reduced its enriched uranium stockpile by 98% and dismantled thousands of centrifuges [19]. The catastrophic nuclear breakout that some Gulf officials predicted did not materialize during the deal's active period. The subsequent collapse of the JCPOA — after Trump withdrew the United States in 2018 — led to exactly the unconstrained enrichment that the agreement had prevented, culminating in the nuclear tensions that contributed to the current war [20].

Gulf states' predictions, in other words, were accurate on proxy activity but overstated on the nuclear question — a distinction that matters as they evaluate a new round of diplomacy.

Iran's Proxy Network: Weakened but Not Defeated

The status of Iran's proxy network — the so-called Axis of Resistance — is more complicated than either side's narrative suggests. The fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 severed the 1,574-kilometer land corridor through which Iran had transferred weapons to Hezbollah for decades [21]. Hezbollah sustained significant losses during its 2024 conflict with Israel, and Western intelligence agencies have reported that Iran is struggling to replenish the group's arsenal via disrupted supply lines through Iraq and Syria [21].

The Houthis in Yemen, however, have become more operationally independent. They have begun assembling and manufacturing weapons domestically, reducing their dependence on direct Iranian supply for drones and missiles [21]. Their capability to strike Saudi and Emirati territory and target commercial shipping in the Red Sea has grown rather than diminished [21].

A March 2026 Foreign Policy analysis noted that Iran's proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen are increasingly "out for themselves," pursuing their own agendas rather than acting as reliable instruments of Tehran's strategic direction [22]. This fragmentation presents a dual problem for Gulf states: the threat is both harder to attribute and harder to deter through a single deal with Tehran.

Security Guarantees: What the Gulf Wants vs. What It's Getting

Saudi leaders have made clear what they want from Washington: advanced weaponry, a peaceful nuclear program, and a defense treaty [12]. The model they point to is the US-South Korea mutual defense treaty or, more ambitiously, NATO's Article 5 collective defense commitment.

What they are getting is arms sales — large ones, approved on an emergency basis — but no treaty. The Trump administration has not publicly offered Gulf states any formal security guarantee comparable to Article 5 or the US-South Korea framework [3][23]. The ceasefire negotiations are being conducted bilaterally between Washington and Tehran, with Gulf states as interested bystanders rather than parties to the deal — a dynamic that echoes their exclusion from the JCPOA negotiations, which Saudi Arabia protested at the time [18].

The Carnegie Endowment described the Gulf monarchies as "caught between Iran's desperation and the U.S.'s recklessness" [24]. The Atlantic Council warned that the war "could change the US relationship with Gulf states" fundamentally, as the conflict demonstrated both the depth of Gulf dependence on American defense systems and the limits of American willingness to absorb Gulf security concerns into its own negotiating priorities [25].

The Human Cost: Migrant Workers in the Crossfire

The populations most directly exposed to the conflict are not Gulf citizens but the millions of migrant workers who form the backbone of Gulf economies. Across the GCC, South Asian and Southeast Asian workers staff ports, construction sites, energy facilities, and service industries [26].

As of March 16, Iranian strikes had killed at least 11 civilians and injured at least 268 in Gulf states, with the majority of victims being migrant workers [27]. India repatriated over 220,000 nationals from the GCC region and Iran by March 2026 [26]. Human Rights Watch documented that Iranian strikes across the Gulf "endanger civilians" and called on all parties to protect civilian infrastructure [27].

These workers have no diplomatic representation in the ceasefire talks, no role in the political decisions that led to war, and limited ability to evacuate. The International Organization for Migration characterized the situation as "a growing humanitarian crisis" [28].

The Self-Interest Question: Are Gulf Fears a Pretext?

A steelman counterargument holds that Gulf alarm over Iran serves multiple domestic purposes beyond genuine security. The massive arms purchases — nearly $175 billion in announced deals with the United States in the past year alone — benefit Gulf ruling families' relationships with Washington while doing little to build genuine military independence [12]. Critics argue these purchases "tie the GCC closer to the US and prolong American presence" rather than building autonomous deterrence capability [12].

The 972 Magazine noted that the war has exposed how Gulf states' military dependence on the United States leaves them in a bind: unable to defend themselves independently, yet unable to influence American diplomatic decisions that directly affect their security [29]. The arms dependency functions as a form of leverage that Washington can use to mute Gulf objections to any deal it strikes with Tehran.

There is also an internal governance dimension. In Bahrain, protests have begun to break out among the country's Shia population after years of political repression, and the conflict risks "opening up longstanding divides inside these countries" [12]. An external Iranian threat has historically served to justify security-state measures that suppress domestic reform pressure across the Gulf monarchies.

That said, dismissing Gulf fears as purely self-serving requires ignoring the physical evidence: Qatar's destroyed gas infrastructure, the UAE's intercepted 2,700+ projectiles, and Bahrain's near-total depletion of its missile defense stocks are not manufactured grievances [2][8][11].

Winners, Losers, and the GCC's Internal Fractures

If the ceasefire holds and Iran is gradually reintegrated into international markets, the effects will not be uniform across the GCC. The divergence is already visible.

Oman and Qatar have maintained channels with Iranian leadership throughout the crisis. Oman has long served as a quiet mediator between Washington and Tehran, and Qatar's back-channel relationships facilitated hostage negotiations [7]. Both stand to benefit commercially from normalized trade with Iran — after the 2015 JCPOA, Iran's non-oil exports to Qatar rose 148% [7].

Saudi Arabia and the UAE face a sharper competitive threat. A sanctions-free Iran with restored oil production capacity would compete directly with Gulf producers in global energy markets, at a moment when both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are pursuing economic diversification strategies premised on sustained energy revenue [7]. The Foreign Policy assessment described Gulf interests as fundamentally diverging: "Some are seeking insulation, others see strategic opportunity, and still others are hedging between the two" [30].

Tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE over Yemen underscore this intra-Gulf rivalry, shaped by geopolitical differences and intensifying economic competition [7]. The Carnegie Endowment questioned whether the GCC can "transcend its divisions" given the disparities in resources and the tendency of member states to pursue national interests unilaterally [31].

What Comes Next

The two-week ceasefire is a pause, not a resolution. The 45-day Phase 2 negotiations will determine whether this becomes a lasting settlement or a prelude to renewed conflict. The central unresolved questions — uranium enrichment, Hormuz control, sanctions relief, IRGC designation, and US force posture — are each individually capable of collapsing the talks [4][3].

For Gulf states, the stakes extend beyond any single provision. The war has demonstrated that Iran can impose extraordinary costs on its neighbors even while absorbing sustained US-Israeli military strikes. A ceasefire that locks in Iranian leverage over Hormuz without providing Gulf states formal security guarantees or a seat at the negotiating table would confirm their worst suspicion: that American deal-making with Tehran has always treated Gulf security as a secondary concern [3][24].

The Council on Foreign Relations warned that "any deal that falls short of a comprehensive settlement risks entrenching Iranian leverage rather than constraining it" [3]. Whether the Gulf's fears prove justified — again — depends on negotiations in which they remain, for now, spectators.