A plume of black smoke and flames billowing over the town of Mangaf, south of Kuwait City
The war on Iran has probably entered a new stage now that the American military acknowledged causalities among its forces in Jordan. Media reports of US helicopters damaged in Jordan and Patriot missile batteries in Erbil, Iraq, destroyed by Iranian strikes completed the picture. Less than two weeks ago when the US hit targets inside Iran in response to Iran attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, many thought it would be a limited violation of the ceasefire implemented under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Washington and Tehran. Even when US President Donald Trump said that the MoU was over, this was not taken at face-value as he often backtracks on threats.
Now, Iran itself says it has “suspended its commitments” to the MoU, which means the ceasefire it stipulated for 60 days to negotiate a final deal is no longer valid. The Iranian Fars news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi accusing the US of having already suspended its own commitments. He added, “We have also suspended our commitments; we are not implementing them and are busy defending our country.”
Initially, American strikes hit targets associated with Iran’s capability to attack ships but the bombing escalated to target roads, bridges, airports, power stations and other infrastructure. Iran responded by hitting a power station and water desalination point in Kuwait — extending its retaliation beyond targeting “American military interests” in Gulf countries as it has always claimed. Iranian attacks have repeatedly targeted almost all the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries alongside Jordan and Iraq. The possibility of broadening the war to include civilian targets in those countries is rising with continued American strikes on infrastructures inside Iran —especially in the south and west of the country.
Though most Iranian missiles and drones are intercepted, the GCC countries will not tolerate continued Iranian aggression that threatens its security and economy. So far, the response has been strong condemnation and strengthening defences against Iranian attacks. But for how long can the Gulf afford the continued conflict and Iranian retaliatory strikes?
“Semi-official positions” and pundits’ statements offer a rising sense of the need to respond if the war escalates further. The political adviser to the UAE President wrote on X about the need for concerted Gulf action. Anwar Gargash urged the GCC to “enhance the security and stability of its member states”. He wrote about the council’s performance: “However modest it may appear, it should serve as an incentive to strengthen the council’s role and develop its effectiveness towards our shared security, and it should not entrench acceptance of the status quo,” probably a reference to the current stance of absorbing Iran’s aggression while verbally condemning it.
Yet, even though Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corpse (IRGC) issued a stark warning to Gulf countries that they should “be prepared to face an appropriate and proportionate” military response, there is no indication that any GCC country will be involved in the war on Iran, at least not publically.
Days before the latest flare-up of fighting, an adviser to the former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned that what he called “adventurism” would receive an “immediate response”. In a series of posts on X, Ali Akbar Velayati said the “axis of resistance” would not remain silent in the face of what he called humiliation and adventurism, adding that it was “ready to fire”. That was interpreted by many commentators as Iran asking its Houthi allies in Yemen to target the Strait of Bab Al-Mandab on the southern entrance to the Red Sea. But there are no indications yet that the conflict is spreading beyond the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
Some Gulf commentators are going further than the official line by hinting at the need for a Gulf response to Iranian attacks. Emirati political commentator Abdul Khaleq Abdulla wrote on X saying that “Iran’s repeated aggression against Kuwait and Bahrain is cowardly and unacceptable, a blatant violation of the sovereignty of peaceful Gulf States that have every right to ask: Where is the unified and deterrent Gulf stance? The Arab Gulf states are in a state of war, and yet some persist in repeating a dull discourse that this war is not ours”.
Those calls for action are not new, but this time the stakes are higher. There is a consensus building that the Strait of Hormuz should not be left for Iran to manage and must be opened freely to maritime transport. The Europeans and NATO share the same stance with the GCC countries and the US. But whether this is a pretext for the Gulf’s direct involvement in the war on Iran is yet to be seen.
As a veteran western diplomat, who previously served in the Gulf, notes, the widening of the conflict would be inevitable if the Houthis closed Bab Al-Mandab. He also notes that keeping Israel out of the current escalation is a “buffer” to keep the Gulf out of the war, but an analysis piece in the Israeli daily Haaretz hinted that Israel may not stay out for long.
The paper noted, “Even as ground invasion looms, the US and Iran want wild-card Israel out of the fight”, but concluded that Israel may not stay away. “After several weeks of gradual escalation, there are growing signs that the confrontation between the US and Iran may intensify and expand,” its analysis goes on to say. Some observers suggested that if President Trump wanted to achieve a “big military victory” over Iran before the November mid-term elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would want in on the show before an election of his own in October. Some even view this coming August as the crunch as far as an outcome in the Gulf is concerned.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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