Gulf monarchs forced to confront life without the US

Public statements from Saudi, Gulf and Qatari officials have become “unconventionally hard”, says Dr Ozcelik at the Royal United Services Institute, a defence and security think tank. “These are heavyweights in the Gulf, and their steer now might chart a new path in the future of US-Gulf and Gulf-Iran relations. They may, behind closed doors and in hushed tones, urge the US to keep going until that threat is more decisively degraded.” She says some of the monarchies are “worried that a surviving rump regime in Iran would be undeterred in its future aggression against the Gulf, knowing that lashing out against a range of targets, including water and energy infrastructure, stripped the Gulf of its veneer of stability”.