From the first day back in the White House, Donald Trump did not seem like an ally in the traditional sense of the word. He was not from the school of conventional political diplomacy, with its long-term alliances, but a deal-maker who views countries more as points of pressure than partners and allies.

He fought Iran and dragged the region into an open-ended war without a real strategy for its conclusion, and then, when its fire reached Oman and the UAE after the ceasefire, he found no shame in describing the aggression as “not intense” and not rising to the level of breaching the ceasefire.

At a moment when the cost of targeting a Gulf ally should have been raised, the event was linguistically reduced to a “skirmish,” as if the missiles crossing the Gulf skies were just background noise in the American-Iranian negotiation theater.

A skirmish, Mr. President, in its linguistic meaning, is a limited clash or fight between two parties, but here it came from one side only. When missiles crossing the skies of the Gulf are reduced to a “skirmish,” the description becomes a deliberate downplaying of the event rather than an accurate portrayal.

Portraying the war as a Hormuz crisis is merely a linguistic substitute for the absence of a war strategy, as the strait before February 28th was not an existing problem in itself, but was introduced into the equation as a later title to justify previous confusion.

Here, the question is no longer: What happened? But: What is the strategy governing a region where strikes are reduced to words, and where facts are replaced with titles?

The multiplicity of Iranian power

On the other side of the picture, Tehran also does not appear as a single-layered state easily comprehensible or accountable. There is the Iran represented by Abbas Araghchi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf: diplomatic language touting that “there is no military solution to a political crisis,” warning against being dragged into another “quagmire” in Hormuz, and hinting that the ball is in the others’ court.

And there is another Iran holding the keys to missiles, straits, and militias: the Iran of the Revolutionary Guard and its security faces, seeing the Gulf as a theater for messages of power and a laboratory for equations.

Between these two layers, the simple question any Gulf individual asks gets lost: With whom do I sign an agreement? With whom do I conclude a non-aggression pact? And who guarantees that the signer is the actual decision-maker of launch?

Iran, chanting “there is no military solution” today, is the same that continued, even under the banner of ceasefire, to send missiles and drones towards the UAE over the past days. Stranger still is the official discourse, keen on denying the targeting or hinting with phrases like: “If we had acted, we would have announced it.” This denial does not repair trust but strikes at it again: once in the sky and once in reality.

Neighborliness, in the culture of the region, is not merely geographical borders but a network of mutual reassurance. When the neighbor uses its missiles to impose its equations, and then uses language to erase the impact, the wound becomes too deep to be washed away by a diplomatic statement.

The Gulf states between Iran and the US

In this complex picture, the Gulf — with the UAE at its heart — stands before a harsh equation: a strategic ally in Washington whose relationship is measured by momentary interests rather than the stability of commitment, and an Iranian neighbor that chose the path of hard power at the expense of a historical balance of neighborliness, expecting dialogue slogans to suffice to gloss over the image. Both parties have contributed, each in their way, to eroding a fundamental pillar of regional security: trust.

This loss of trust is not just a rhetorical slogan but a political reality that will reflect on everything: from the architecture of the joint air defense system to armament choices to the shape of economic and diplomatic relations.

For decades, the Gulf states have been building their security on an American umbrella and the “virtual” rationality of the Iranian neighbor, discovering today that they are forced to redefine both: the umbrella is no longer guaranteed, and the neighbor is no longer understood. What comes after the Iran war will not resemble what was before it, neither in the Gulf nor in its waterways.

Perhaps the most important lesson Gulf capitals can learn from this phase is that their security cannot remain hostage to the whims of a volatile American president, nor to overlapping layers of authority in Tehran, where some speak the language of peace while others press the launch button.

A new phase for Gulf security

Rebuilding the Gulf security system — politically, militarily, and economically — will become an urgent priority, based on a simple premise: if the ally is not guaranteed, nor the neighbor trustworthy, then there must be a third umbrella created here, in this land, by a purely Gulf decision, on the basis of prioritizing the essential over the important, and neutralizing any disputes for the greater interest.

Ultimately, the dilemma is not only that the Gulf lives between an “unreliable ally” and an “unfathomable foe,” but also that both parties still act as if time is running backward and states will endlessly accept being mere side theaters for others’ wars and calculations.

What has changed today is that these countries have come to realize their economic and geopolitical weight, knowing that if their trust is broken, they can redraw maps rather than just adapt to them.

And when they decide to redefine the meaning of neighbor and ally, it will mark the start of a new phase, not just in the Gulf but in the lexicon of international relations as a whole.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Annahar.