# REPORT: In the Gulf, the diplomacy of silence facing the Iran-US war

> Since July 9, 2026, the Gulf has been living through a nightmare it spent years trying to avoid: becoming the actual battlefield of a confrontation between Iran and the United States that neither Qatar, nor Bahrain, nor…

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Reportage
- Published: 2026-07-20
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/report-in-the-gulf-the-diplomacy-of-silence-facing-the-iran-us-war

## Key takeaways

- Since July 9, 2026, missiles and drones have struck several Gulf-adjacent states, including Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, while the Al-Azraq and Prince Hassan bases in Jordan were hit on July 9 and July 12.
- Qatar hosts Al-Udeid while acting as a mediator with Tehran, and Bahrain hosts the US Fifth Fleet headquarters, making both targets.
- Oman and Qatar mediate, Saudi Arabia keeps a low profile after its 2023 rapprochement with Iran, and the UAE projects business-as-usual calm.
- The GCC has issued no unified statement, which the author attributes to limited Gulf influence over decisions made in Washington and Tehran.
- The author draws a parallel with Ukraine and notes China profits from discounted Iranian oil.

## Introduction: small states, caught in a war they did not choose

### A region that has become a chessboard for someone else's war

Since July 9, 2026, the **Gulf** has been living through a nightmare it spent years trying to avoid: becoming the actual **battlefield** of a confrontation between **Iran** and the **United States** that neither Qatar, nor Bahrain, nor Kuwait, nor Jordan chose to fight. Missiles and drones have struck across half a dozen countries in under a week, and none of the governments now absorbing the **damage** sat at the table where the decisions leading to this escalation were made.

This report is an attempt to look, country by country, at what this **war** actually looks like for the small and mid-sized states of the region, the ones with no nuclear program to defend and no ideological stake in the Israeli-Iranian confrontation, yet who now count intercepted **missiles** over their own capitals as a matter of daily routine.

### A silence that says more than any statement

What stands out most, traveling this file capital by capital, is the near-total absence of forceful public **statements** from the region's governments. No Gulf state has issued anything close to a declaration of solidarity with either side, no unified **Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC**) statement has emerged condemning the **strikes** on its own member states. This diplomatic silence is not cowardice, it is **survival strategy** in a region where saying too much, in either direction, invites the next round of **strikes**.

*I find something quietly devastating in watching governments stay silent about missiles landing on their own soil. But I understand it. When your survival depends on staying useful to both Washington and Tehran, loud statements are a luxury you cannot afford.*

## Qatar, the mediator turned target

### Hosting Al-Udeid and hosting the negotiations, at the same time

**Qatar** occupies perhaps the most **contradictory position** in this entire crisis. It hosts the massive **Al-Udeid** air base, the largest American **military installation** in the region, while simultaneously serving as one of the primary diplomatic channels between Washington and Tehran. This dual role, indispensable partner to the United States and trusted interlocutor for Iran, has made **Doha** central to every attempt at de-escalation since the war began in February.

That centrality came at a price in early July, when **Qatari territory** was directly targeted amid the wave of Iranian strikes against Gulf states hosting American forces. Doha's response was characteristically restrained: shelter warnings issued to residents, air defenses activated, and no public escalation of **rhetoric** against Tehran, a posture consistent with years of Qatari diplomacy built on staying useful to all sides rather than picking **one**.

### A mediating role that has become more, not less, essential since the strikes

Following the collapse of the Islamabad memorandum and the American strikes of July 11 to 12, reports indicate that mediators, Qatar prominently among them, moved quickly to try to salvage some framework for **de-escalation**, aware that without a diplomatic channel, the region risks a much longer and more destructive **cycle** of strikes. Doha's willingness to keep playing this role, even after being struck itself, illustrates both its **strategic necessity** and the absence of any better alternative for the smaller Gulf states caught in the middle.

This is the paradox at the heart of Qatari diplomacy: the very access to Tehran that makes Doha valuable as a mediator is also what makes its hosting of American forces so provocative to **Iran**. **Qatar** cannot fully satisfy either side, and its strategy has instead been to make itself too useful to abandon, for both.

*Qatar's diplomacy works precisely because it refuses to fully please anyone. That is either the smartest survival strategy in the Gulf, or the most exhausting one, and after five months of this war, I suspect it is both.*

## Bahrain, home to the Fifth Fleet, exposed on every front

### Hosting the US Navy's most important regional headquarters

**Bahrain** hosts the headquarters of the **US Fifth Fleet**, making it one of the most strategically significant American **military footholds** in the entire Gulf. This hosting role brings real security benefits under normal circumstances, but it turns the tiny island kingdom into an obvious **target** the moment tensions between Washington and Tehran boil over into direct confrontation, as they did in early **July**.

Bahraini and allied air defenses intercepted the bulk of the missiles and drones fired toward the kingdom during the recent wave of attacks, according to regional **reporting**, though not without disruption to daily life, shelter warnings, and the kind of sustained anxiety that comes from living next to the region's most consequential American military asset during an active **war**.

### Kuwait, caught in the same crossfire with fewer resources to manage it

**Kuwait** found itself **targeted** alongside Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan in the same wave of Iranian strikes, intercepting most but, according to some **reports**, not all of the missiles and drones aimed at targets on its territory. **Kuwait's position** is particularly delicate: a smaller state with a large expatriate population and an economy deeply tied to regional stability, it has even less room to **maneuver** diplomatically than its larger Gulf neighbors.

Both Bahrain and Kuwait now face the same underlying dilemma: neither can credibly abandon its **security relationship** with Washington, and neither has any real ability to prevent Iran from treating that relationship as sufficient justification for strikes on their own soil. Their **exposure** is structural, not a matter of policy choices they could easily reverse.

*Bahrain and Kuwait didn't choose to host the infrastructure that makes them targets. They inherited decades of alliance decisions, and now they're paying, in intercepted missiles and frayed nerves, for choices made long before this specific war began.*

## Jordan, twice struck and twice restrained

### The Al-Azraq base and the Prince Hassan base, both hit within days

**Jordan** has arguably absorbed the most direct and repeated **damage** of any Gulf-adjacent state in this crisis. The **Al-Azraq** base was **struck** on July 9, and a second facility, the **Prince Hassan** base, was hit on July 12. Iran claimed these strikes destroyed a command center and hangars used for MQ-9 reconnaissance drones, claims that Jordanian and American **officials** have neither fully confirmed nor entirely denied in public statements.

During the first wave of strikes, Jordanian and allied air defenses reportedly intercepted eight of the ten missiles fired at Al-Azraq, an **interception rate** that, while far from perfect, likely prevented substantially worse casualties and damage. Amman's public response to both incidents has remained measured, focused on **defensive posture** rather than retaliatory rhetoric, consistent with Jordan's long-standing strategy of avoiding direct entanglement in conflicts between larger regional powers.

### A kingdom whose stability the entire region depends on

Jordan's **restraint** is not simply a matter of temperament, it reflects a hard strategic calculation. The kingdom borders Israel, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, hosts hundreds of thousands of **refugees** from multiple regional conflicts, and has built its entire foreign policy around being seen as a stabilizing, non-threatening actor that no one has an interest in **destabilizing** further. Getting drawn into open confrontation with Iran would jeopardize that carefully built **position** for a fight that is not, at its core, Jordan's own.

This is precisely the bind smaller states face throughout this crisis: hosting American military infrastructure invites Iranian **retaliation**, but abandoning that hosting role would mean giving up the security guarantees that infrastructure is meant to provide. Jordan, like Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, has no good **option**, only a least-bad one.

*Watching Jordan absorb two strikes within days and still respond with restraint tells you everything about how little control these smaller states have over a war being fought, in practice, on their territory but not by their choice.*

## Oman, the mediator who has no army to project and no interest in one

### A neutrality inherited from Sultan Qaboos, tested by a new generation of crisis

**Oman** continues to draw on the **diplomatic capital** built over decades under the late Sultan Qaboos, who cultivated a reputation for careful, principled **neutrality** that let Muscat maintain working relationships with Washington, Tehran, and virtually every other regional actor simultaneously. That legacy has made Oman one of the two or three indispensable **mediators** in every attempt to de-escalate this conflict since February, including the negotiations that produced the now-collapsed Islamabad memorandum.

Oman's approach stands in deliberate contrast to states that host major American **military installations**. By maintaining a comparatively modest military footprint and avoiding entanglement in either side's security architecture, **Muscat** has preserved precisely the credibility that lets it talk to both **Washington** and **Tehran** without either side viewing it as an extension of the other's interests.

### Mediation as the only leverage a small state has left

Reports following the July 11 to 12 American strikes and the Hormuz closure indicate that regional mediators, Oman among them, moved immediately to try to salvage some **diplomatic framework**, aware that a region without any active channel for de-escalation risks a far longer and more destructive war. This mediating role is, in a very real sense, the only **strategic leverage** a state like Oman possesses in a conflict between much larger powers, leverage built entirely on **trust** accumulated over years rather than on military or economic weight.

That leverage is not infinite. Every failed round of negotiations, like the Islamabad memorandum's collapse within weeks, erodes some of the **credibility** mediators like Oman have spent decades building. Rebuilding that trust for a next attempt will take real diplomatic work, work that becomes harder with every new round of strikes.

*Oman's entire strategic value rests on trust that takes decades to build and can be spent down in weeks. Watching the Islamabad memorandum collapse this fast should worry anyone counting on mediation to eventually end this war.*

## The United Arab Emirates, defending an economy built on the promise of calm

### Interceptions over Dubai and Abu Dhabi, a direct threat to a very specific business model

The **United Arab Emirates** intercepted missiles and drones during the recent wave of Iranian strikes, successfully preventing **damage** to its territory but not the underlying anxiety that comes with active air defense operations over cities that have spent decades marketing themselves as havens of stability and predictability. Dubai's entire economic model, built on finance, tourism, logistics and its role as a neutral-feeling hub for global business, depends on precisely the perception of **calm** that repeated interception operations directly undermine.

Emirati officials have, publicly, sought to project **business-as-usual continuity**, continuing major events and commercial activity even as air defenses remained on active alert. This is a deliberate strategy: any visible **panic** would do more lasting damage to the UAE's economic proposition than the missiles themselves, provided the interceptions continue to succeed.

### A calculated bet that cannot be sustained indefinitely

The UAE's approach throughout this crisis illustrates a broader truth about how **Gulf states** are managing a war they did not start: project calm, rely on air defense systems, and hope that quiet diplomacy elsewhere resolves the underlying confrontation before the pattern of strikes becomes frequent enough to genuinely damage investor and tourist confidence. This is a **bet**, not a guarantee, and every additional week of active hostilities makes that bet harder to win.

Abu Dhabi has, like Riyadh, maintained warmer relations with Tehran than some Western observers might expect, a legacy of the broader regional **de-escalation trend** that preceded this year's war. That diplomatic capital gives the UAE somewhat more room to maneuver than states with a purely adversarial relationship with Iran, but it does not make **Emirati territory** immune to being drawn into the crossfire.

*Dubai sells the world an image of frictionless calm. Every intercepted missile over its skyline is a crack in that image that no amount of business-as-usual messaging can fully paper over.*

## Saudi Arabia, the quiet giant staying out of the spotlight

### A 2023 rapprochement with Iran that now pays a strategic dividend

**Saudi Arabia** has maintained a notably low public profile throughout this latest wave of escalation, a posture made possible by its 2023 **diplomatic normalization** with Iran, brokered by China after years of open hostility between the two regional heavyweights. That rapprochement does not make **Riyadh** immune to being drawn into this conflict, but it does give Saudi Arabia more diplomatic distance from direct Iranian targeting than Gulf states hosting more prominent American military infrastructure.

This distance is not accidental. Saudi Crown Prince **Mohammed bin Salman** has staked enormous political and economic capital on his **Vision 2030** diversification agenda, a program that depends fundamentally on **regional stability** and sustained foreign investment. Open alignment with Washington against Tehran, however tempting given the underlying **rivalry** between Saudi Arabia and Iran, would directly threaten that agenda.

### A silence that reflects calculation, not indifference

**Riyadh's restraint** throughout this crisis should not be mistaken for disengagement. Saudi Arabia remains deeply attentive to how this war develops, given its own long history of **rivalry** with Iran and its central role in regional oil markets, directly affected by the **Strait of Hormuz's** closure. But Saudi officials have calculated, apparently correctly so far, that quiet diplomacy and studied silence protect Vision 2030's long-term interests better than vocal alignment with either side of the American-Iranian confrontation.

This calculation places Saudi Arabia in an interesting position relative to its Gulf neighbors: it faces less direct exposure to strikes than Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait or Jordan, while still bearing the economic consequences of a closed strait and a destabilized regional oil market, consequences that hit every **producer** in the region regardless of their direct involvement in the fighting.

*Saudi Arabia's silence isn't neutrality, it's discipline. Riyadh has learned that loud alignment with Washington carries costs Vision 2030 cannot absorb, and that lesson shapes every public statement, or lack of one, coming out of the kingdom right now.*

## The Gulf Cooperation Council's absent voice

### No unified statement, no collective response

What is perhaps most **telling** about this crisis is the near-total absence of a unified **GCC** response to strikes that have hit multiple member states within the same week. No joint statement condemning the attacks, no coordinated **diplomatic initiative** distinct from the individual mediating efforts of Qatar and Oman, no visible attempt to present a common Gulf position to either Washington or Tehran. The GCC, as an institution, has been essentially invisible during the most **dangerous week** of this crisis for its own membership.

This institutional silence reflects the same underlying dynamic driving each individual state's caution: any **collective statement** risks being interpreted by Iran as unified hostility, while doing little to increase Gulf states' leverage over decisions being made in Washington and Tehran, largely independent of **Gulf input**. The GCC's absence is not a failure of coordination alone, it is a rational response to a structural reality in which the bloc's member states have limited genuine influence over the war's core dynamics.

### A structural weakness this crisis has made impossible to ignore

This crisis exposes a long-standing structural weakness in Gulf regional architecture: a bloc whose members individually depend on American **security guarantees** but that has never developed a genuinely unified voice capable of shaping the policies of either Washington or Tehran. Each state manages its own bilateral relationships, absorbs its own strikes, and negotiates its own accommodations, with remarkably little visible **coordination** even when the same missiles are, in effect, targeting the same regional security architecture.

Whether this crisis eventually prompts a serious reconsideration of Gulf collective security arrangements remains an **open question**. What is not in doubt is that the current architecture, built primarily around individual bilateral relationships with Washington, has left each Gulf state to manage this **war** largely alone.

*A regional bloc that stays silent while half its members get struck within the same week isn't demonstrating unity, it's demonstrating the limits of an architecture built for a calmer era than the one the Gulf now finds itself in.*

## China, the quiet economic beneficiary of a war it plays no direct part in

### Discounted Iranian oil, a lifeline that gives Beijing leverage without exposure

**China** has become the primary buyer of Iranian oil sold at a discount under sanctions, a relationship that gives Beijing substantial indirect **economic leverage** over Tehran's ability to sustain this confrontation, without any of the direct **military** or diplomatic exposure borne by Gulf states or the United States. This arrangement lets China extract real economic value from Iranian isolation while remaining, formally, a **bystander** to the actual fighting.

Beijing's 2023 mediation of the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement further illustrates this pattern of strategic positioning: China presents itself as a stabilizing economic partner across the region's rival camps, gaining **commercial access** and diplomatic goodwill on multiple sides simultaneously, without the costs that direct **alignment** with either Washington or Tehran would entail.

### A pattern that echoes far beyond the Gulf

There's an uncomfortable parallel worth drawing here with the war in Ukraine: in both conflicts, a distant great power extracts meaningful **economic advantage** from instability primarily paid for by smaller, more directly exposed states and their civilian populations. China's position in the Gulf crisis mirrors, in **structure** if not specifics, the broader pattern of authoritarian and semi-aligned powers benefiting from confrontations the West bears much of the direct cost of managing.

This is not an accusation that Beijing engineered the crisis, it did not. But it is a fair and necessary observation that the current disruption serves Chinese economic interests better than almost anyone else's involved, a fact Western and Gulf **policymakers** alike should weigh carefully when assessing the broader strategic landscape.

*China isn't fighting this war, but it is quietly profiting from every week it continues. That distinction should matter far more than it currently does in how Gulf states think about their long-term economic partnerships.*

## The United States, present everywhere and accountable to no regional body

### A Fifth Fleet, an Al-Udeid base, and a firm posture that leaves little room for Gulf input

The **United States**, through the Fifth Fleet headquartered in Bahrain, the Al-Udeid base in Qatar, and a dense network of additional facilities and partnerships across the region, remains by far the most consequential external **military actor** shaping this crisis. The Trump administration's posture throughout has been notably firm, declaring the **Islamabad memorandum** "over" following renewed Iranian strikes and responding with a strike campaign against roughly 140 IRGC-linked targets.

This posture, whatever its merits on its own terms, has been set with minimal visible input from the **Gulf states** whose territory absorbs much of the resulting Iranian retaliation. Washington's decisions are made primarily through the lens of American strategic interests and its relationship with Israel, not through a **consultative process** with Doha, Manama, Kuwait City or Amman, even though those capitals bear direct consequences from every escalatory step.

### An alliance structure that provides protection but not a seat at the table

This is the deepest **structural tension** running through this entire crisis: Gulf states receive genuine security benefits from hosting American forces, but they exercise remarkably little **influence** over the decisions that determine when and how those forces are used, decisions that directly determine whether their own territory becomes a target. The **relationship** is protective but not equal, and this crisis has made that asymmetry more visible than it has been in years.

Whether this asymmetry prompts any lasting recalibration in how Gulf states approach their security partnerships with Washington remains to be seen. For now, the pattern holds: American **strategic decisions**, Gulf states absorbing much of the resulting exposure, and remarkably limited formal mechanisms for the latter to shape the former.

*Hosting American power provides real protection, but this crisis has shown, starkly, that it does not provide a seat at the table where the decisions determining your own exposure to war actually get made.*

## The Ukraine parallel that Gulf officials avoid saying out loud

### Smaller states punished for their Western alignment

There is a parallel between the position of Gulf states in this crisis and that of smaller states caught between larger powers in other conflicts around the world, one that regional **officials** rarely state publicly but that shapes their calculations nonetheless: alignment with a major Western power brings real security benefits in ordinary times, but it also makes you a **target** the moment that power's adversary decides retaliation against you carries less cost than retaliation against the power itself.

This dynamic does not require **moral equivalence** between the underlying conflicts to be analytically useful. What it highlights is a structural pattern: great powers project **influence** through smaller allied states, and those smaller states absorb a disproportionate share of the resulting risk, with limited ability to shape the **decisions** that create that risk in the first place.

### A lesson smaller states across multiple regions are drawing simultaneously

Gulf officials watching this crisis unfold are almost certainly drawing lessons applicable well beyond their own region, about the limits of **security guarantees** that come without meaningful decision-making input, and about the value of diplomatic flexibility, like that maintained by Oman and, increasingly, Saudi Arabia, over rigid alignment with any single **great power**. These lessons will likely shape Gulf strategic thinking for years after this specific crisis, whenever and however it eventually **resolves**.

None of this suggests Gulf states will abandon their American security partnerships, the alternative **protections** available to them remain limited. But it does suggest a growing appetite across the region for hedging strategies, deeper ties with China, warmer relations with Iran where politically possible, that reduce total dependence on a single **security guarantor** whose decisions they cannot control.

*Every small state watching this crisis is quietly recalculating how much protection is worth how much exposure. That recalculation, more than any single strike, may be this war's most lasting regional consequence.*

## What the interception numbers actually tell us

### High success rates, but not total ones

Across Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE, air defense systems have intercepted the substantial majority of missiles and drones fired during this latest wave of strikes, with reported figures like eight of ten missiles intercepted at Jordan's Al-Azraq base during the first wave suggesting genuinely capable regional **air defense architecture**. This is, in relative terms, a **success story** for the substantial Western and indigenous investment in air defense across the Gulf over the past decade.

But "the substantial majority" is not "all," and the psychological and material cost of even a partial breakthrough, on infrastructure, on civilian confidence, on the broader sense of security these systems are meant to provide, should not be minimized simply because most **incoming fire** was stopped. Every intercepted missile still represents an attack that happened, whatever its ultimate physical outcome.

### A war of attrition on defense systems and public nerves alike

Sustained high-tempo air defense operations carry their own costs: **interceptor missile stockpiles** are not infinite, system maintenance and readiness degrade under continuous **operational stress**, and the psychological toll on populations living under repeated shelter warnings accumulates in ways that are harder to quantify than physical damage but no less **real**. A war that continues to test these systems week after week eventually tests their **limits**, regardless of how well they have performed so far.

This is precisely why Gulf states, whatever their public silence, have every incentive to want this **crisis** resolved as quickly as possible, not because they lack confidence in their defenses, but because they understand that no defensive system, however capable, can indefinitely absorb sustained attack without eventual degradation.

*Impressive interception rates are not the same thing as safety. Every Gulf capital living under these shelter warnings knows the difference, even when official statements prefer to emphasize the success rate over the underlying exposure.*

## Kuwait and Bahrain, small economies with no cushion for prolonged crisis

### Financial hubs that cannot absorb a long war

Both **Kuwait** and **Bahrain** run economies that, unlike Saudi Arabia's or the UAE's, have comparatively little cushion to absorb a prolonged regional crisis. Bahrain's financial sector, built over decades as a regional banking hub, depends on a perception of stability that repeated missile interceptions over its own capital directly erode, regardless of how effective the actual air defense has been.

Kuwait, for its part, has watched oil-dependent budget planning become considerably harder to forecast amid the volatility surrounding the Strait of Hormuz closure, on top of the direct security anxiety of hosting incoming fire aimed, formally, at the American presence on its soil rather than at Kuwait itself.

### Why smaller Gulf economies want de-escalation more urgently than their larger neighbors

This economic vulnerability helps explain why Kuwait and Bahrain, even more than Saudi Arabia or the UAE, have consistently supported every mediating effort by Oman and Qatar, however fragile. Neither state can afford a war of attrition measured in months, let alone years, the way larger, more diversified Gulf economies might absorb it with greater, though still real, difficulty.

This urgency rarely surfaces in public statements, consistent with the broader pattern of restraint running through this entire crisis, but it shapes, more than almost any other factor, the diplomatic energy these two governments have quietly invested in supporting Doha and Muscat's mediating work.

*Kuwait and Bahrain don't have Saudi Arabia's oil reserves or the UAE's diversified economy to fall back on. For them, this war's economic cost isn't an abstraction, it's an immediate and pressing vulnerability.*

## The mediators' race against a rapidly closing window

### Rebuilding trust that took years to accumulate, in a matter of days

Following the collapse of the Islamabad memorandum and the American strikes of mid-July, mediators from Oman, Qatar and other regional actors face the task of trying to rebuild some framework for de-escalation in an environment considerably more hostile than the one that produced June's fragile agreement. Every day this crisis continues without a credible diplomatic channel increases the risk of further **escalation** that makes any eventual agreement harder to reach.

This mediating effort is complicated by the **succession crisis** unfolding within Iran's own leadership following Supreme Leader Khamenei's death and burial, and by the deep distrust generated on the American and Israeli side by evidence of continued nuclear-linked reconstruction activity at Iranian sites. **Mediators** are, in effect, trying to rebuild a bridge while both sides of the river keep shifting.

### Why Gulf states have every reason to want this window to reopen quickly

For the Gulf states discussed throughout this report, a rapid return to some diplomatic framework, however imperfect, represents by far the least costly **outcome** available. Every alternative, continued strikes, a prolonged Hormuz closure, sustained economic disruption, carries **costs** these states have no ability to fully offset on their own. This is precisely why figures like the Qatari and Omani mediators continue their efforts even after being struck themselves: the alternative to **mediation** is not stability, it is more of exactly what just happened.

Whether this renewed mediating push succeeds where the Islamabad memorandum ultimately failed will depend on factors largely outside Gulf states' direct **control**, chiefly the internal political calculations in Washington and Tehran. But the urgency with which regional mediators have moved suggests they understand, better than most outside observers, just how narrow the window for avoiding a much longer **war** may currently be.

*Watching mediators rush back to the table days after being struck themselves tells you something important: for the Gulf, the alternative to imperfect diplomacy isn't some better option, it's simply more war.*

*I keep returning to the same conclusion: every Gulf state in this story wants the same thing, an end to a war they didn't start, and none of them has enough leverage, alone, to make that happen.*

## Conclusion: a region absorbing costs it did not choose to bear

### What this week revealed about the real balance of power in the Gulf

The events of early and mid-July 2026, strikes against Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, the collapse of the Islamabad memorandum, and the subsequent American strikes and Hormuz closure, have laid bare a **structural reality** that Gulf officials rarely state as plainly in public: the states hosting American military infrastructure bear a disproportionate share of the risk generated by decisions made largely in Washington and Tehran, with limited ability to shape those **decisions** themselves.

Qatar and Oman's continued mediating efforts, Saudi Arabia and the UAE's careful public restraint, and Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait's measured responses to direct strikes on their own territory, all reflect variations on the same underlying **strategy**: survive this crisis without becoming more deeply entangled in it than absolutely necessary, while doing what limited **diplomatic work** is available to help end it.

### A test the region will remember long after this specific crisis ends

However this particular escalation eventually resolves, whether through renewed mediation, a new ceasefire framework, or a prolonged period of grinding, lower-intensity confrontation, the **Gulf states** at the center of this report will emerge from it having learned hard lessons about the limits of the security architecture they have built their stability around for decades. Those lessons, about exposure without input, about the value of diplomatic flexibility, about the quiet costs great powers impose on smaller allies, will likely shape regional **strategic thinking** long after the current headlines fade.

For now, the Gulf continues to do what it has done throughout this crisis: absorb strikes, maintain **public restraint**, and hope that the mediators still willing to work the phones between Washington and Tehran can find, once again, some fragile version of the calm that collapsed so quickly in June.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Anadolu Agency on UAE interceptions and shelter warnings in Qatar and Bahrain — July 2026](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/uae-intercepts-iranian-missiles-drones-as-qatar-bahrain-issue-shelter-warnings/3995338)

- [The National, live coverage of attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait — July 13, 2026](https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/07/13/live-bahrain-kuwait-attacked-iran-us-war/)

- [Khaleej Times on Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan intercepting Iranian missiles and drones — July 2026](https://www.khaleejtimes.com/world/gulf/bahrain-kuwait-jordan-intercept-iran-missiles-drones)

- [Wikipedia entry on the 2026 Iranian strikes on Jordan — July 2026](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iranian_strikes_on_Jordan)

### Secondary sources

- [Al Jazeera live blog on the IRGC's declared closure of the Strait of Hormuz — July 12, 2026](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/7/12/iran-war-live-irgc-declares-strait-of-hormuz-closed-over-us-interference)

- [Malay Mail on mediators trying to salvage diplomacy after the US-Iran escalation — July 12, 2026](https://www.malaymail.com/amp/news/world/2026/07/12/mediators-try-to-salvage-diplomacy-after-us-iran-escalation/227231)

- [New York Post on Iranian strikes against US bases in Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain — July 9, 2026](https://nypost.com/2026/07/09/world-news/iran-fires-at-us-bases-in-qatar-jordan-kuwait-and-bahrain-after-second-night-of-american-strikes/)

- [Foreign Policy, coverage of the Gulf and Iran crisis — July 2026](https://foreignpolicy.com/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/report-in-the-gulf-the-diplomacy-of-silence-facing-the-iran-us-war