https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-ignites-iran-war-gulf-arab-states-pay-price-gulf-sources-say-2026-03-11/
US ignites Iran war, but Gulf Arab states pay the price, Gulf sources say
The U.S. may have pulled the trigger on the Iran war, but it is the oil-producing Gulf that will pay the price, Gulf sources and analysts say, signalling unease in ties between a region under Iranian attack and the superpower it relies on for protection.
Behind the scenes, resentment is mounting in Gulf Arab capitals at being drawn into a war they neither initiated nor endorsed but are now paying for economically and militarily, with airports, hotels, ports and military and oil installations hit by Iranian strikes, said three regional sources, who declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak publicly.
For decades, relations between Washington and the Gulf states rested on an implicit trade-off: Gulf energy and capital – including hundreds of billions of dollars spent on U.S. arms, advanced technology and goods and services – in return for U.S. protection, said Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics.
Gerges said the war had shaken those assumptions. Now, he said, Gulf states would accelerate efforts to diversify their foreign and security partnerships, realising "they cannot really rely on the United States to protect their energy, oil, gas, their people and their sovereignty.”
The Gulf states still blame Iran for hitting them. They pretend they are neutral because they told the U.S. it can’t use the bases on their lands to attack Iran. But the bases have played an essential role in the U.S. military assault nonetheless.