The deathly rattle of missiles and drones may have eased following the April 7 announcement of a two-week ceasefire by the principal combatants of the 39-day US-Israel-Iran war. The truce was hammered out hours before President Donald Trump’s deadline—to obliterate “a whole civilisation”—was about to expire. Yet across the Gulf, there is little illusion that this tenuous pause will translate into lasting peace. The scale of disruption in the region has been unprecedented in recent memory. It has laid bare the Gulf’s vulnerabilities, damaged its economic engines, and punctured its carefully cultivated image of stability in ways that may take years to repair.
