Good morning! Today is Sunday, May 31st 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Anik Joshi argues the Gulf states made a costly miscalculation in quietly backing the war with Iran, expecting American protection but instead discovering their true place in the pecking order — with damaged oil infrastructure, threatened desalination plants, and fleeing Western capital revealing the steep price of an ill-advised adventure. On day fifty-three of the ceasefire, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says President Trump will be "patient" in pursuing a deal to formally end the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even as Iran warns it will target any military vessel interfering with the waterway and sporadic strikes continue across the region. and now for the details. Our first story this morning takes us to the Middle East, where the aftermath of the war with Iran is reshaping the strategic calculations of America's Gulf allies. For decades, the Gulf monarchies — Saudi Arabia foremost among them — built their position by balancing quiet cooperation with Western governments and capital against just enough religious conservatism to keep their own populations in check. That balance, by and large, held. But the war with Iran appears to have upended the arrangement. As Anik Joshi writes in The American Conservative, the Gulf states placed a bad bet. They offered low-key support for the war, expecting America to take out Iran and shield them from the consequences. Instead, they have discovered their place in the pecking order is far lower than they had imagined. Joshi notes that the bill has come due in the form of significant damage to the oil and energy sectors of Gulf countries opposing Iran, with Iran going so far as to threaten the desalination plants that supply more than two-thirds of Saudi Arabia's drinking water. Joshi points out that geography always made this a riskier war for the Gulf than for Israel. Israel benefits from the Iron Dome and from a 2008 American law guaranteeing its qualitative military edge. The Gulf states have no such legal backstop, separated from Iran by only the Persian Gulf itself. And while they have spent hundreds of billions on military hardware, the war has been no success — with some governments now resorting to laws suppressing information about missile strikes and to coordinated influencer campaigns. The deepest irony, Joshi argues, is that Iran's stated goal was to destroy not the physical city of Dubai but the idea of it. With Western companies and capital now fleeing the region, that goal has, in some measure, been achieved — set in motion, he writes, by an ill-advised military adventure that other American allies were wise to decline. Staying with the war in Iran, the ceasefire entered its fifty-third day on Saturday. Speaking in Singapore, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said President Trump intends to be "patient" in pursuing a memorandum of understanding to formally end the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative that Iran has reaffirmed its commitment to controlling traffic through the Strait, with Tehran's Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters warning that any military vessel interfering with management of the waterway will be treated as a target. In a Truth Social post Friday, President Trump said Iran's enriched material must be unearthed by the United States, in coordination with Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and destroyed. Drop Site News, citing a senior Iranian official, reports that Iran would be willing to suspend enrichment above 3.6 percent for ten years and dilute existing higher-enriched uranium under international supervision — but only at a later phase of any deal. Trump also appeared to announce the end of the U.S. naval blockade of the Strait, saying ships caught in the waterway may begin heading home. The New York Times reports that the administration is seeking alternative financing mechanisms to funnel money to Iran without direct payments. Berger notes that, even amid the ceasefire, the fighting has not fully stopped. Bloomberg reports that an Iranian ballistic missile struck Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait, injuring five American personnel and destroying at least one MQ-9 Reaper drone. Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon killed at least 14 people on Friday. And Responsible Statecraft reports that a provision in the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act would deeply fuse the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors — authorizing co-production of weapons, joint AI and biotech licensing, and what the bill calls "network integration" and "data fusion" between the two militaries. Brent crude closed Friday at just over 91 dollars a barrel, with the national average for regular gasoline at 4 dollars and 36 cents. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
