Gulf States Face Narrow Window to Shape Own Regional Security Deal

Gulf states have roughly 60 days to define their own terms before Washington and Tehran do it for them.

The clock started on June 17, when President Donald Trump signed a one-page memorandum of understanding at the Palace of Versailles. The document, reached three days after the United States and Iran agreed on a framework to halt the war that began in late February, extends a ceasefire for 60 days, reopens the Strait of Hormuz, lifts dueling naval blockades, and halts military operations across the region, including in Lebanon. Both sides committed to negotiate the harder questions during that window: Iran’s nuclear program, its uranium stockpile, and sanctions relief. The agreement also commits the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council states to finance at least 300 billion dollars for Iran’s reconstruction, to gradually lift nuclear-related and unilateral sanctions, and to issue immediate waivers for Iranian oil and petrochemical exports once a final deal is reached.

Additional reference context is available at https://gulfif.org/the-case-for-a-gulf-iran-non-aggression-pact/.

For the Gulf states, however, the real work lies ahead.

Although limited Iranian attacks against Gulf territory have continued even after the memorandum, the agreement has created an opening that Gulf leaders cannot afford to miss. The central question has shifted from whether a deal with Iran is achievable to whether the GCC can secure one that protects its territory, infrastructure, and economic ambitions. Recent Iranian attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain underscore the urgency. A non-aggression pact could help prevent Gulf territory, airspace, maritime corridors, and critical infrastructure from becoming the operating theater for Israeli, American, and Iranian escalation, though reaching one would require a coordinated GCC-wide effort that has proven difficult to sustain.

Saudi Arabia is best positioned to advance this initiative. The kingdom has experience negotiating directly with Iran and maintains communication channels with its leadership. Riyadh has also shown considerable restraint despite previous Iranian attacks on Saudi infrastructure, avoiding overt retaliation or militaristic rhetoric. That restraint leaves Riyadh well placed to lead a GCC-wide negotiation on a non-aggression pact while bringing in other stakeholders, including China, Pakistan, Türkiye, and Egypt. Reports suggest Saudi Arabia has already begun consulting Gulf partners and European actors to pursue this direction.

What might such an agreement actually contain? While the details of Saudi Arabia’s reported proposal are not yet public, it is reportedly modeled on the Helsinki Agreement, which laid the foundation for Cold War détente between the Soviet Union and Western countries in 1975. A non-aggression pact would likely be a limited, security-focused agreement confined to the Gulf and adjacent areas, designed to establish a baseline for GCC-Iran relations through a series of mutual assurances. Gulf states would reaffirm that their territory and airspace will not be used to support offensive operations against Iran, while Tehran would commit not to target Gulf states, their energy and civilian infrastructure, ports, or maritime corridors.

At minimum, the agreement would need to address three critical issues. Territorial restraint would prohibit physical, cyber, or proxy attacks against either side’s territory and critical infrastructure. Maritime restraint would ban harassment, seizure, mining, or attacks on shipping through any Gulf-administered waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman, Bab al-Mandeb, and the Red Sea. Crisis management would establish a dedicated deconfliction and de-escalation channel, supported by regional mediators such as Oman and Qatar and expandable to other signatories, to address potential violations before they escalate.

One likely gray area is digital infrastructure, particularly data centers. Tehran argues that Gulf-based data centers support U.S. military targeting and surveillance operations against Iran. For GCC states, AI infrastructure is a cornerstone of their economic transformation strategies and a major red line. The agreement would not require political reconciliation or strategic trust as a precondition. Rather, it would establish a narrow framework for near-term mutual restraint while leaving the region’s deeper security disputes unresolved. Iran would continue its rivalry with the United States and Israel, while Saudi Arabia and the GCC would retain their security partnerships with Washington.

A GCC-Iran non-aggression pact could provide Saudi Arabia with three strategic benefits. It would allow Riyadh to reassert leadership within the GCC and the broader region by freezing the kinetic dimension of the conflict and creating space for renewed Saudi-UAE cooperation. If attacks from Iran are reliably reduced, the UAE is more likely to support such a deal, especially if it includes a framework for managing the Strait of Hormuz. A non-aggression pact would also reduce the economic costs of a prolonged conflict, since Gulf states’ domestic transformation agendas depend on regional stability, and sustained instability raises the cost of every major transformation project in the region. Third, such a pact could shift the Saudi-Iran rivalry from military confrontation back to geoeconomic competition. Saudi Arabia will not compete with Iran in open combat, as the potential losses would jeopardize Vision 2030 and the broader diversification agenda that underpins regime legitimacy.

Significant barriers could still derail any agreement. Israel’s leadership could disrupt any Gulf-Iran de-escalation track. Netanyahu’s government has continued to treat perpetual war with Iran as politically useful, despite recent polling suggesting military action has not delivered the political dividends the coalition expected. Trump reinforced this dynamic by linking a U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Iran to Gulf normalization with Israel, telling Arab leaders he expected them to normalize relations in exchange for a ceasefire deal. Normalization remains a non-starter for Saudi Arabia and the other non-signatory Gulf states of the Abraham Accords, which continue to condition normalization on an irreversible path to Palestinian statehood. If Israel retains the ability to restart strikes at will, any Gulf-Iran understanding would remain fragile.

Iran could also undermine a non-aggression pact through selective escalation. Tehran may read Gulf restraint as evidence that its threat posture is working and sustain selective strikes to preserve that leverage. Gulf states would then be forced to choose between continued restraint and the use of force to restore deterrence. Any agreement would therefore require a clear, agreed-upon response to possible Iranian violations.

Meanwhile, intra-GCC fragmentation could weaken the Gulf’s regional position. The UAE-Saudi schism risks undermining the coordination a non-aggression pact would require. Both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have signaled support for de-escalation once a legitimate U.S.-Iran ceasefire is on the table, and the memorandum now satisfies that condition. The remaining question is whether they can convert that shared support into a common negotiating position before the 60-day window closes. Without a coordinated GCC approach, Iran and Israel could exploit Gulf divisions, leaving the GCC unable to function as a coherent diplomatic bloc. The broader case for such an agreement is examined at gulfif.org/the-case-for-a-gulf-iran-non-aggression-pact/.

A GCC-Iran non-aggression pact will not end the war. It might, however, take the Gulf states out of it. If the Gulf waits for Washington and Tehran to settle the larger questions before defining its own terms, it will inherit whatever bargain they strike. The 60-day window is open now; whether it stays open depends largely on whether Riyadh and Abu Dhabi can close the gap between them in time.