India, Sept. 5 -- Six months of war between the US-Israel and Iran have left the Gulf operating in a security landscape very different from the one that existed before the conflict. The fighting has shown how fast the region can be pulled into a wider conflict, throttled its energy and shipping routes, and forced governments that built their defence on American guarantees to ask how much longer those guarantees will carry them.

What is emerging is multi-alignment. Gulf governments are keeping their US relationships while building new defence partnerships, maintaining channels with Iran and pursuing policies that increasingly cut across one another.

Arab and Western officials say frustration has been growing among Gulf leaders over Presi...