by Michael Hollister
Published at tkp.at on April 10, 2026

4.162 words * 22 minutes readingtime

Part 1 read here:
Follow the Oil: How Washington Is Dismantling China’s Energy Supply

Part 2 read here:
Follow the Oil -Part 2- Europe Without Oil

1. The Shield That Wasn’t

For decades it was treated as an iron law of Gulf politics: those who host American military bases on their territory are untouchable. No rational actor strikes a country where US soldiers are stationed – the risk is too great, the consequences incalculable. This law was no official doctrine. It was a collective assumption, embedded in decades of experience, confirmed by the silence of the guns.

Iran has broken that law.

Since February 28, 2026, the Islamic Republic has been systematically striking targets in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates – states that together host eight permanent US military bases and at least eleven additional forward positions. The radar station at Muharraq in Bahrain cost $1.3 billion. It is destroyed. In Qatar, the Foreign Ministry documented eight separate missile and drone strikes up to mid-March 2026 – with precise coordinates, damage assessments, and casualty figures, all formally submitted to the UN Security Council, all part of a legal strategy that demonstrates how seriously the threat is being taken. The Gulf coast from Kuwait to Abu Dhabi has become a permanent intercept zone in which Patriot batteries and Abrams systems run around the clock.

For the Gulf states, that has been a tectonic shock. Not because the United States is too weak – but because Iran has done a different calculation. A calculation in which living under the US security umbrella does not mean protection, but target designation.

The question that follows is not tactical in nature. It is strategic, and it is existential: what happens when the United States achieves its objectives and leaves? Who protects the Gulf states then – against an Iran that has suffered massive losses, whose economy is collapsing, but whose IRGC is intact enough to shape the next generation of officers who will remember this war?

That is the material from which Part 3 of this series is made.

2. The Logic of the Impossible – Iran’s Calculus Against Neutrality

What initially looks like strategic irrationality – a country simultaneously challenging the United States, Israel, and six Gulf states – ollows a precise logic. The Middle East Council on Global Affairs described it clearly in its policy note of March 12, 2026: political neutrality becomes, in military calculations, what analysts call “incomplete neutrality.” (Middle East Council on Global Affairs, Policy Note: “The Limits of Neutrality for Gulf States in the U.S.-Israel-Iran War,” March 12, 2026)

The concept is straightforward. The United States maintains a dense network of bases, naval forces, and intelligence infrastructure throughout the Gulf region – in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. This infrastructure serves not only deterrence. It actively serves war-fighting: reconnaissance flights depart from Al Udeid, logistics run through the Fifth Fleet in Manama, electronic warfare is coordinated out of Abu Dhabi. No GCC state authorized these bases for the Iran war. All have formally declared that their territory will not be used for offensive operations.

In the Iranian calculus, that is irrelevant. The infrastructure is there. The aircraft take off from there. The logistics run through there. Those who permit that on their soil are – regardless of political declarations – implicitly part of the war. The IRGC’s targeting logic follows this finding consistently: Bahrain hosts the Fifth Fleet, so Bahrain gets struck. Qatar hosts Al Udeid, so Qatar gets struck. The civilian population pays the price for a decision their governments made years ago and can no longer reverse.

At the same time, Iran pursues a second objective with these strikes: fragmentation. When Bahrain burns while Oman mediates, when Qatar keeps diplomatic channels to Tehran open while the UAE leans on Washington – then GCC unity erodes. Then individual states begin pursuing their own survival strategies. Then the United States loses the coherent regional backing it needs for an orderly end phase of the war.

This strategy carries a high price for Iran: international isolation, documented by UN Security Council Resolution 2817 of March 11, 2026 – 135 co-sponsors, the broadest support in Security Council history for a single resolution condemning Iran’s strikes as violations of international law. Even Pakistan and India co-sponsored, despite their traditional balancing act toward Tehran. Russia and China abstained but did not veto – because vetoing would have been politically untenable given the historic breadth of the coalition. (UN Security Council Resolution 2817, March 11, 2026, https://docs.un.org/en/s/res/2817(2026)) (Middle East Council on Global Affairs, CJ Pine: “The Gulf’s Diplomatic Counterstrike at the UNSC,” March 19, 2026, https://mecouncil.org/blog_posts/the-gulfs-diplomatic-counterstrike-at-the-unsc/)

But the IRGC has priced in this isolation. An organization that believes itself in an existential struggle accepts international condemnation as the cost of survival. Resolution 2817 protects not a single radar installation in Bahrain.

3. Kharg Island – The Turning Point Nobody Names

Ninety percent of Iranian oil exports flow through Kharg Island. The island lies 15 miles off the Iranian coast in the northern Persian Gulf, is 7 miles long and barely 3 miles wide – and concentrates on that minimal surface area the entire economic operating capacity of the Islamic Republic. Without Kharg, no oil. Without oil, no revenue. Without revenue, no war, no subsidies, no IRGC payroll, no functioning state.

This is not new knowledge. During the Tanker War of the 1980s, Kharg Island was repeatedly struck by Iraqi jets – in 1984, 1985, and 1986. Export capacity was temporarily reduced to a quarter of normal operations. Iran continued exporting regardless, improvising loading capacity along the coast, building shuttle systems. The war lasted eight years and cost more than a million lives. Iran did not capitulate.

Today the strategic logic is the same, but the instruments are different.

Washington has not taken Kharg Island off the table. Officially. It is exposed. And the question that runs through the Pentagon’s subtext is not whether Kharg Island gets struck – but which scenario serves Washington better.

Scenario 1 – Seizure: US forces occupy Kharg Island. Ninety percent of Iranian oil exports – roughly 1.5 to 1.8 million barrels per day, depending on the state of the war – would come under American control. Iran loses its principal revenue channel, its capacity to finance the war, and over time its economic operating capability. Trump said explicitly in his address of April 1, 2026, that Iranian oil was “the easiest target of all” – but he had deliberately not struck it because he did not want to give Iranians “not even a small chance of survival or rebuilding.” That is not humanitarian restraint. That is negotiating strategy: preserving the oil as leverage for as long as talks are running. (Trump, Primetime address on the Iran operation, April 1, 2026, via CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/01/world/live-news/iran-war-us-trump-oil)

Scenario 2 – Destruction: If no negotiated solution emerges, Kharg Island is damaged to the point where operations are impossible for months or years. Not only storage tanks and loading infrastructure – but pipelines, pumping systems, the entire logistics chain. Iran loses its revenue stream for years. The result: an Iran whose population suffers under economic collapse, whose IRGC can no longer meet payroll, whose state legitimacy erodes – possibly faster than any ground offensive could achieve.

In both scenarios, the strategic primary objective is identical: neutralize Iran as a threat to Israel and as an actor in the China containment strategy. Not through regime change – Trump said verbatim on April 1: “Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change.” But through economic paralysis that eliminates any offensive capability for years. (Trump, “Regime change was not our goal,” Time Magazine, April 2, 2026, https://time.com/article/2026/04/02/trump-speech-white-house-iran-war-update-end/)

For the Gulf states, Kharg Island begins a ledger that Washington will not settle.

4. The Divide That Trump Did Not Create but Has Exploited

The Gulf Cooperation Council was never a monolithic bloc. The centrifugal forces within the GCC have deep historical roots – the Qatar dispute from 2017 to 2021, divergent positions on the Abraham Accords, Oman’s traditional mediating role, the UAE’s independent foreign policy under Mohammed bin Zayed. Before the war, these divergences were held together by shared economic interests, concern about Iran, and the US security umbrella.

The Iran war has amplified the centrifugal forces exponentially.

On one side: Bahrain and the UAE. Bahrain signed the Abraham Accords in 2020, establishing normalized relations with Israel. The UAE did the same, and Abu Dhabi has since developed military, technological, and intelligence cooperation with Israel that extends far beyond symbolic normalization. Both host central US military installations. Both have aligned themselves politically most closely with Washington. And both are paying the highest direct price: they are Iran’s preferred targets. Muharraq is burning. The UAE absorbs drone strikes arriving from across the Red Sea and through Yemen.

On the other side: Qatar and Oman. Qatar hosts Al Udeid, the largest US air base in the Middle East – but Doha has simultaneously kept diplomatic channels to Tehran open that no other GCC state possesses. This is not hypocrisy. It is the rational survival strategy of a small state with 2.8 million inhabitants that must navigate between great powers. Qatar’s foreign minister conducted mediation talks well into March 2026. Oman has played the same role it has occupied for decades: quiet channel between Washington and Tehran, discreet, reliable, without public positioning.

Saudi Arabia sits at the center of this divide, watching two objectives simultaneously: a weakened Iran and a swift peace. Riyadh needs both. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 bets on economic diversification, foreign investment, and tourism – all projects that unstable energy markets and a burning Gulf region will ruin. A weakened Iran is strategically desirable for Saudi Arabia. But a Strait of Hormuz that remains restricted for months is not. Saudi Arabia exports its oil through Hormuz. Kuwait does too. The UAE does too. (Middle East Council on Global Affairs, Abdulla Banndar Al-Etaibi: “How the Gulf States Can Navigate the Middle East’s New Alliance Politics,” March 18, 2026, https://mecouncil.org/blog_posts/how-the-gulf-states-can-navigate-the-middle-easts-new-alliance-politics/)

Trump did not create this divide. But he is exploiting it. The public rhetoric of the White House – closer to Bahrain and the UAE, more distant toward Qatar’s dual-track strategy – sends signals that are heard within the GCC. Rubio stated explicitly in his meeting with Arab foreign ministers that the war objective was not regime change, but the United States would welcome political change in Iran. That distinction matters to the Gulf states: it separates the question of what Washington wants now from the question of what Washington expects after withdrawal. (Rubio, Al Jazeera interview on war objectives and Hormuz, March 30, 2026, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/30/the-war-in-iran-key-takeaways-from-al-jazeeras-interview-with-marco-rubio/)

A divided GCC cannot develop a common negotiating position toward Washington. A divided GCC cannot build a unified security architecture after the war. For Washington, that is not a problem. It simplifies.

5. Hormuz, Suez, and the Official Transfer of Responsibility

The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. The IRGC has declared it will not permit a single liter of oil to pass. Drones, Azhdar-type underwater vehicles, and fast attack boats patrol the 33-mile-wide passage. Tankers are being struck, insurers are refusing coverage, shipping companies are rerouting. Roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil normally flows through this strait. Since late February 2026, most of it no longer does.

Trump’s response to this situation was revealing – not for what he said, but for what he did not say.

In his primetime address of April 1, 2026, from the Cross Hall of the White House, Trump explicitly addressed the Hormuz question. He declared the United States would not directly protect the strait. He called on other countries to do it themselves: “Should have done it before. Should have done it with us, as we asked, go to the strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves.” And then the sentence that must be understood as a strategic statement: “Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy.”

That is not an invitation to multilateral cooperation. It is the official transfer of responsibility. Washington has done its part. The rest is everyone else’s problem.

For the Gulf states, that sentence means everything. Saudi Arabia exports roughly 6 to 7 million barrels of oil per day, most of it through Hormuz. The alternative – the East-West Pipeline through Saudi Arabia with a capacity of approximately 5 million barrels per day, and the ADCO port of Fujairah in the UAE – has limited capacity and cannot fully compensate for the closure. Every day that Hormuz remains closed costs the Gulf export economies billions. Not Washington – the Gulf states.

The United States has Venezuela. It has 303 billion barrels of proven reserves under direct American control since January 3, 2026. It does not need Gulf oil. It does not need an open Strait of Hormuz. Trump said it bluntly in the same address: “We don’t need their oil. We don’t need anything they have.”

Parallel to the Hormuz question, Iran has repeatedly renewed the threat of a Suez Canal closure. That would strike Europe – which already stands without Russian gas and without Iranian oil, as Part 2 of this series documented. A Suez closure would be the final blow to a European economy that is structurally dependent on US energy exports. For Washington, that would also not be a problem. A weakened European competitor buying cheap American liquefied natural gas because it has no alternative – that is not collateral damage to the Trump strategy. It is its logical outcome.

6. Resolution 2817 – Diplomatic Triumph with a Strategic Half-Life

Amid these military and geopolitical convulsions, the GCC achieved a remarkable diplomatic feat. Bahrain introduced Resolution 2817 on March 11, 2026, on behalf of the GCC and Jordan in the UN Security Council. 135 co-sponsors – more than ever before for a Security Council resolution, more than the 2014 Ebola crisis peak of 134. Russia and China abstained but did not veto. The resolution condemns Iran’s strikes as violations of international law, identifies Hormuz as a global security matter, and lays the groundwork for possible Chapter VII measures.

That is not nothing. The GCC has spent years building diplomatic capital – cultivating relationships, making investments, coordinating positions. In a crisis, that paid off. Even Pakistan and India co-sponsored, despite their balancing policies. That demonstrates the real economic and diplomatic gravitational pull the Gulf states generate within the international system.

But Resolution 2817 has a strategic half-life.

It protects not a single refinery. It opens no trade route. It prevents no US withdrawal. And it does not answer the actual question: what happens when the United States has left and Iran – weakened, furious, with nothing left to lose – is still there?

The Middle East Council on Global Affairs describes in its security architecture analysis what GCC government officials experienced during the war: even senior diplomats from allied states learned of major operations through media reports, not through official channels. The bases were used. The territories were exposed. The decisions were made in Washington. Doha and Riyadh were informed, not consulted. (Middle East Council on Global Affairs, Khalid Al-Jaber: “Reframing the Gulf Regional Security Architecture,” March 30, 2026, https://mecouncil.org/blog_posts/reframing-the-gulf-regional-security-architecture/)

Consultation means: I ask you before I decide. Information means: I tell you what I have decided.

The Gulf states received information. That is not an alliance. It is subcontracting.

7. The Vacuum After Withdrawal

On April 1, 2026, Trump declared the war was “nearing completion” – another two to three weeks. The cost: more than $200 billion since the war began, roughly $1 billion per day. Domestic pressure is rising: fuel prices in the United States are up more than 30 percent, most Americans oppose the war according to polls, and the fiscally conservative wing of the GOP is asking with increasing volume when it ends. (Trump, “Nearing completion,” CNBC Live Updates, April 1, 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/01/trump-address-nation-iran-live-updates.html)

Rubio’s statement on Al Jazeera in late March is the clearest withdrawal signal: the war objectives can be achieved “in weeks, not months.” The goal was never regime change. The United States would welcome political change but would not impose it. The Hormuz problem is for others to solve.

What remains after withdrawal?

An Iran whose navy, according to CENTCOM, has been 92 percent destroyed. Whose air force has been largely eliminated. Whose missile capabilities, according to US statements, have been reduced by a third – meaning two-thirds remain. Whose IRGC, in the assessment of Western intelligence services and independent analysts, may be in a stronger position than before the war, because external threats generate internal cohesion. And whose new leadership – Mojtaba Khamenei as successor to the killed Supreme Leader, Parliamentary Speaker Ghalibaf as political anchor – is considered at least as hardline as its predecessors, if not more so.

PolitiFact rated the US claim that regime change had occurred as “Mostly False”: leadership figures were killed, but the governing structures remain intact. The IRGC is intact. The ideology has not changed. (PolitiFact, “Trump, Hegseth say US has accomplished regime change in Iran. Has it?”, April 1, 2026, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2026/apr/01/donald-trump/regime-change-iran-khamenei-hegseth/)

For the Gulf states, that means: they wake up after the war in a region where a weakened but undefeated Iran exists – with a generation of IRGC officers who experienced this war firsthand, who know which Gulf states hosted US bases, and who will have no amnesia.

At the same time, the US security umbrella that bridged this war will not continue in its previous form. Replacing the Muharraq radar station alone costs $1.3 billion. Further damage to US installations and GCC infrastructure adds up. Whether the United States rebuilds its bases to full capacity, and who pays for it, remains open. Trump’s National Defense Strategy is clear: the United States wants to concentrate its resources on the Indo-Pacific – on China containment. Panama is waiting. Malacca is waiting. The next act of the plan that Operation Pivot described back in February 2026 is not the Gulf. (Michael Hollister, “Operation Pivot,” February 1, 2026, https://www.michael-hollister.com/de/2026/02/01/operation-pivot/)

8. The OPEC Question and the Limits of Cohesion

The GCC maintained a remarkably unified public front during the war. Resolution 2817 is the proof. No GCC state publicly defected to Iran. No GCC state publicly challenged Washington.

But unity in public presentation is not the same as strategic cohesion.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have paid the highest economic price for their proximity to Washington: destroyed infrastructure, rising insurance costs, unsettled investors, oil exports that cannot move through Hormuz. They will ask – internally, without public drama – what they received in return for that price. Iran is weakened but not eliminated. Hormuz is not open. The US bases may not be fully rebuilt. And the Abraham Accords, on which Bahrain and the UAE partially grounded their security strategy, have been burdened by a war that brought Israel and the United States as joint forces into the region – without the Gulf states having any say in the decisions.

Qatar and Oman emerge from the war in a different position. Qatar kept diplomatic channels open – to Iran, to Hamas, to all relevant actors. That is a resource after a war that must lead to negotiations. Oman played the same role. These two states will be needed as mediators in the post-war order – by all sides. (Middle East Council on Global Affairs, Ibrahim Al-Sheikh: “To Protect Its Strategic Interests, the Gulf Must Form a More Cohesive Bloc,” March 24, 2026, https://mecouncil.org/blog_posts/to-protect-its-strategic-interests-the-gulf-must-form-a-more-cohesive-bloc/)

The OPEC cohesion that survived the war faces its real test only afterward. When production quotas are negotiated, when prices are set, when the question arises of how much Iranian oil returns to the market after the war – the divergent interests within the GCC will become visible. Saudi Arabia needs high oil prices for its fiscal planning. The UAE has diversified its economy more broadly and has greater flexibility. Kuwait and Bahrain have narrower margins. These divergences existed before the war. After it, in a region with a shattered security architecture and a weakened but not vanished Iran as a permanent variable, they will sharpen.

9. Subcontracting Instead of Alliance – The Real Bill

This is the core that the mecouncil.org analysts circle without stating directly. What the United States operates with the Gulf states is not an alliance. It is subcontracting.

An alliance means shared objectives, shared decisions, shared costs, shared gains. It means that Bahrain and Qatar sit at the table where the future of their region is decided. It means consultation before bombers take off. It means that a partner providing infrastructure and territory also has a voice over how they are used.

That did not happen.

Subcontracting means: you provide the infrastructure. We do the job. When the job is done, we leave. The bill stays with you.

The US National Security Strategy of November 2025 states this without diplomatic varnish: “We will not compensate for security gaps created by irresponsible decisions of allied leaders.” Translated: if your infrastructure is destroyed, if your investors are unsettled, if your relationship with a weakened, furious Iran is burdened for the next generation – that is your problem. You made the decisions. (White House, National Security Strategy, November 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf)

And yet many of those decisions were not made by the Gulf states at all. They were made for them – in the decades when US bases became the default architecture of the Gulf region, in contracts that contain no exit clauses for the event of war, in the Abraham Accords that integrated Israel into a regional security network that is now at war.

The GCC analysts at the Middle East Council call for what would be logical: stronger internal cohesion, an independent security architecture, diversification of security partners – Turkey, Pakistan, NATO cooperation frameworks. That is not wrong. But it is the answer to a question the Gulf states should have asked earlier. Now, after the war, with destroyed infrastructure and an Iran that is weakened but not gone as a permanent variable, the construction of those structures begins from a significantly weaker starting position.

That is the real price of the war for the Gulf states. Not the missile damage. Not the short-term market turbulence. Not the insurance costs. The real price is that they wake up after the war in a region whose security architecture has been fundamentally shaken – with a permanent security problem that Washington will not solve, because Washington is already at the next problem.

Panama. Malacca. China.

And as with Europe, what Part 2 of this series concluded as its finding holds here too: those who pay the bill did not place the order.

Michael Hollister
is a geopolitical analyst and investigative journalist. He served six years in the German military, including peacekeeping deployments in the Balkans (SFOR, KFOR), followed by 14 years in IT security management. His analysis draws on primary sources to examine European militarization, Western intervention policy, and shifting power dynamics across Asia. A particular focus of his work lies in Southeast Asia, where he investigates strategic dependencies, spheres of influence, and security architectures. Hollister combines operational insider perspective with uncompromising systemic critique—beyond opinion journalism. His work appears on his bilingual website (German/English) www.michael-hollister.com, at Substack and in investigative outlets across the German-speaking world and the Anglosphere.

Sources

1. Middle East Council on Global Affairs – Ibrahim Al-Sheikh: “To Protect Its Strategic Interests, the Gulf Must Form a More Cohesive Bloc,” March 24, 2026: https://mecouncil.org/blog_posts/to-protect-its-strategic-interests-the-gulf-must-form-a-more-cohesive-bloc/
2. Middle East Council on Global Affairs – Abdulla Banndar Al-Etaibi: “How the Gulf States Can Navigate the Middle East’s New Alliance Politics,” March 18, 2026: https://mecouncil.org/blog_posts/how-the-gulf-states-can-navigate-the-middle-easts-new-alliance-politics/
3. Middle East Council on Global Affairs – Khalid Al-Jaber: “Reframing the Gulf Regional Security Architecture,” March 30, 2026: https://mecouncil.org/blog_posts/reframing-the-gulf-regional-security-architecture/
4. Middle East Council on Global Affairs – CJ Pine: “The Gulf’s Diplomatic Counterstrike at the UNSC,” March 19, 2026: https://mecouncil.org/blog_posts/the-gulfs-diplomatic-counterstrike-at-the-unsc/
5. Middle East Council on Global Affairs – Policy Note: “The Limits of Neutrality for Gulf States in the U.S.–Israel–Iran War,” March 12, 2026 (PDF on file; direct URL not publicly accessible)
6. Michael Hollister – “Operation Pivot,” February 1, 2026: https://www.michael-hollister.com/de/2026/02/01/operation-pivot/
7. White House – National Security Strategy, November 2025: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf
8. UN Security Council Resolution 2817, March 11, 2026: https://docs.un.org/en/s/res/2817(2026)
9. Trump – Primetime address on the Iran operation, April 1, 2026 – CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/01/world/live-news/iran-war-us-trump-oil
10. Trump – “Regime change was not our goal” – Time Magazine, April 2, 2026: https://time.com/article/2026/04/02/trump-speech-white-house-iran-war-update-end/
11. Trump – “Nearing completion,” CNBC Live Updates, April 1, 2026: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/01/trump-address-nation-iran-live-updates.html
12. Rubio – Statement on war objectives, State Department, March 2, 2026: https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/03/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-remarks-to-press-6/
13. Rubio – Al Jazeera interview, war objectives and Hormuz, March 30, 2026: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/30/the-war-in-iran-key-takeaways-from-al-jazeeras-interview-with-marco-rubio/
14. PolitiFact – “Trump, Hegseth say US has accomplished regime change in Iran. Has it?”, April 1, 2026: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2026/apr/01/donald-trump/regime-change-iran-khamenei-hegseth/
15. NBC News – “Despite Trump’s claims, there’s no indication Iran’s regime has lost power,” April 1, 2026: https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/trumps-claims-no-indication-irans-regime-lost-power-western-officials-rcna266318
16. Times of Israel – “Trump says US will be leaving Iran very soon,” April 1, 2026: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/trump-says-us-will-be-leaving-iran-very-soon-insists-regime-change-was-never-a-war-aim/
17. White House – “President Trump’s Clear and Unchanging Objectives Drive Decisive Success Against Iranian Regime,” April 1, 2026: https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/04/president-trumps-clear-and-unchanging-objectives-drive-decisive-success-against-iranian-regime/

© Michael Hollister – All rights reserved. Redistribution, publication or reuse of this text requires express written permission from the author. For licensing inquiries, please contact the author via www.michael-hollister.com.

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