Gulf residents live the war as leaders meet in New York

For residents across the six Gulf states, the war that began on February 28 has never been an abstraction. Strikes have hit airports, energy facilities and hotels, shipping has been thrown into disarray, and the oil and gas exports that form the mainstay of regional economies have been disrupted. On Tuesday, the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman will sit down with United States President Donald Trump in New York, hoping to find a way out of a crisis they did not start.

The meeting takes place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, as the US-Israel war on Iran nears its seventh month. Since the fighting began, Iran has repeatedly struck US bases across the Middle East, and ordinary people in the Gulf have borne much of the consequences. The Strait of Hormuz, a lifeline for the region’s energy trade, remains effectively closed, and a global energy crisis has followed.

The toll is felt unevenly across the six countries. The UAE has managed to keep exporting oil by pipeline to its port of Fujairah, bypassing the closed strait, though not at the volumes it would like. Qatar, whose gas exports depend entirely on that waterway, has seen its LNG shipments severely curtailed. Speaking at an event in New York on Sunday, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani described the economic fallout from the war as an “earthquake”. Saudi Arabia faces a different danger closer to home: Houthi rebels are gaining ground in Yemen against the Saudi-backed government forces, and Riyadh has been intensifying its lobbying for US strikes on the group.

Despite these divergent predicaments, experts say the Gulf states share a common purpose going into the talks. Luciano Zaccara, a researcher with the New Ground Research think tank in Doha, told Al Jazeera that the GCC has “shared positions on the main principles of regional security and de-escalation”. Giorgio Cafiero, CEO of Gulf State Analytics, said that with Trump recently threatening to “wipe out” Iran, he expects the six states, or at least most of them, to convey their grave concerns about the likely consequences of another round of intense US military strikes. “They will probably seek to underscore their own vulnerabilities to a renewed cycle of all-out fighting between the United States and Iran,” he added, noting that they will try to persuade Trump into making certain concessions to Tehran. Cafiero said the Gulf leaders will look to build on a June memorandum of understanding that briefly raised hopes of ending the war before it collapsed last month amid disputes over navigation through the strait. Their aim, he suggested, is an arrangement that “offers the most viable path toward winding down the crisis”.

Ahmed Helal, managing director for the Gulf region at The Asia Group, said freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea sits chief among their common concerns, even as each state seeks relief for its particular situation.

What Trump wants is harder to read. He told the US media outlet Axios on Thursday that he wanted to meet the GCC leaders because he faced a “big decision” on the war and wanted to speak with them directly. Zaccara suggested the US might be expecting more direct GCC engagement against Iran in exchange for direct American intervention to stop the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, though without the GCC leaving the main role in defending themselves. On Iran, Trump has not ruled out another major military escalation, Zaccara said, while the administration also seems open to exploring diplomacy. There are rumours of a possible indirect US-Iran meeting on the sidelines before Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s speech on Wednesday; Iran’s president and foreign minister are both in New York for the assembly.

Meanwhile, Helal pointed to domestic pressures shaping the American position. The midterm elections are weeks away, Trump’s approval ratings sit at a record low, and there is “immense pressure” to lower petrol prices. While the president has threatened further military action, he remains politically sensitive to an “escalatory ladder” that could spike oil prices.

A breakthrough is considered unlikely. The best-case scenario, Helal said, would be an agreement to return to negotiations, potentially brokered by Qatar or Pakistan. Whether Tuesday’s meeting in New York can deliver even that much remains the open question hanging over the Gulf’s residents.