Gulf states are running a dual-track strategy: keeping the US security umbrella while building enough diplomatic capital with Iran to avoid becoming collateral damage in a conflict they didn't choose. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signatories — Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye — plus Qatar met high-ranking Iranian officials in Tehran on Monday, with Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman at the table days after Houthi strikes hit Saudi airports, ports, and oil facilities. The timing is not subtle. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi used a Cambridge speech to float the most ambitious idea on the table: a regional non-aggression pact that would displace the United States as primary security provider. It's the kind of proposal that sounds transformative on paper but crashes into hard structural realities. As Chatham House associate fellow Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi told Al Jazeera: "A regional security framework would need the same vision for the region, which is not necessarily shared among the GCC countries themselves." The immediate trigger is the US–Iran escalation that began February 28, which has closed the Strait of Hormuz, disrupted global energy supply, and produced real infrastructure damage across Gulf states. Trump repeated warnings Friday of further military operations against Iran, with US midterm elections on November 3 concentrating minds in Washington. Iran's IRGC promised a more forceful response to any renewed strikes, creating the escalation spiral that Gulf diplomacy is trying to interrupt. Qatar's mediators presented Iran with a draft deal on Sunday, but by Wednesday Iranian officials told Reuters the proposals were "unacceptable" and that Tehran would show "no flexibility regarding the nuclear issue." The core impasse is sequencing: Washington demands Iranian concessions on the nuclear programme first; Tehran insists its conditions for ending the war must be met before any nuclear commitments. This is the same structural deadlock that has defined US–Iran relations for two decades, now playing out against an active shooting war. Saudi political analyst Khaled Batarfi framed the Tehran visit as a "last warning" — Saudi Arabia signalling willingness to engage but running out of patience. The International Crisis Group's Hamidreza Azizi offered the clearest diagnosis: "Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states remain deeply integrated into the US security system, and there is little indication that they intend to abandon it." The war has raised questions about American reliability, but the response has been diversification, not realignment. The structural picture is one of tactical flexibility masking strategic inertia. Gulf states are adding diplomatic channels — bilateral talks, multilateral coalitions, Omani back-channels — without fundamentally altering the security architecture that has defined the region since the 1990s. Iran's long-standing preference for a US-free regional order remains aspirational. No GCC state has moved to expel US forces, renegotiate basing agreements, or redirect defence procurement. What emerges is a region managing crisis rather than building institutions. The diplomacy is real and consequential — it may prevent the next escalation — but the idea of a durable non-aggression pact requires a level of trust, shared vision, and structural commitment that none of the parties have demonstrated. The honest trajectory: more ad hoc coalitions, more shuttle diplomacy, and a US security role that erodes at the margins without collapsing at the centre.
