Gulf states are discovering the limits of US security guarantees and the costs of neglecting their regional relationships. Australia still has time to avoid that mistake.

“We got played,” a Dubai businessman told The Washington Post in comments later echoed in Semafor’s reporting on Gulf unease over the US–Iran deal. It is an unusually candid admission, the kind that surfaces when expectations built over decades collide with the realities of power.

The UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain now fear an agreement that appears to leave Iran’s military capabilities intact, while releasing funds that may strengthen its armed forces. Their frustration is genuine, but it is aimed at the wrong target. The problem is not simply this deal. It is the political and strategic model the Gulf monarchies chose to build — and what they declined to build in its place.

To understand the Gulf’s predicament, two facts have to be held together. First, the Gulf states became some of the wealthiest societies on earth. Second, that rise occurred while their largest neighbour, Iran, was systematically isolated and punished under a US-led regional order.

As modern political entities, most of the Gulf monarchies are young. Their emergence coincided with the petrodollar system, under which oil would be priced in US dollars in exchange for American protection. Gulf prosperity and Washington’s security umbrella were constructed within the same bargain.

Iran sits in stark contrast. It is an old civilisation with a long political memory and a constitutional tradition that predates most Gulf states. The idea that newly assembled petrostates, operating under US protection,........

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