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This is the first of three articles which will look at the changed and changing political imperatives that have come into place in the Gulf region since Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The second and third articles will look at attitudes towards Iraq from within the region and the wider world community respectively.

The Gulf Co-operation Council Summit in Kuwait last month was not one which produced any very spectacular results. Moreover, its outcome was soon overshadowed by the dramatic events surrounding the hi-jacking of the Kuwaiti aircraft to Tehran. The fifth GCC summit did, however, confirm the solid basis of mutual agreement that exists among the members, and underlined one of the principal merits of the GCC in providing an institutional framework for regular consultation and co-operation among the six countries.

Arab League Secretary General, Chadli Klibi, said the Arab Summit Conference would probably be postponed until December. The Summit, which was to be held in November in Riyadh, conflicts with meetings of the UN Security Council and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the Secretary General pointed out.

Denounced by Libya, castigated by Syria, disparaged by Algeria, criticised by South Yemen and rejected by Lebanon, the emergency Arab Summit conference opened in Casablanca last week with the remaining member nations of the Arab League putting as brave a face as possible on their unenthusiastic attendance.

National celebrations began in Kuwait at the beginning of this month, marking the country's 25th anniversary of independence. An atmosphere of festivity surrounds the various ceremonies and events being organised for the occasion, and senior ministers have been caught up in the general jollity. Shaikh Sabah al Ahmad, the Foreign Minister, last week joined Kuwaiti folklore troupes in the traditional ardha dancing. "We are in need", Shaikh Sabah al Ahmad said, "for celebrations at this glorious occasion - especially under the current circumstances."

Since 1945 Western governments have been notoriously slow to anticipate, and to adapt their own attitudes towards, changes in Arab policies and priorities. In the 1950s the. Nasserite wave was already far up the beach before the West recognised it as a regional force with which they might have reached an accommodation. Instead Western reactions culminated in the cancellation of the finance- for the Aswan High Dam and the Suez crisis of 1956.

The early days of the United Arab Emirates, when the federation was propelled into existence by the British withdrawal from the Gulf in 1971. were a lot less difficult than many had expected them to be - including the departing British and the rulers and peoples of the federation itself. True, the new state was a deal smaller than had been originally envisaged. Bahrain and Qatar had been very likely candidates to join the other seven shaikhdoms of the so-called Trucial states, until, with second thoughts in Manama and Doha about the leadership of the federation, the two countries decided against joining and chose separate independence.

Even before he left New York, there was very little optimism that the peace mission to Tehran and Baghdad by Javier Perez de Cuellar, the United Nations Secretary-General, would have much success and the first reports on his visits confirms the gloomy prognosis. In Tehran, the Secretary-General's first port of call, the Iranian leadership insisted that any acceptance of the ceasefire call was conditional on the public condemnation by the Security Council of Iraq for starting the Gulf war.

Next month in September the Gulf War between Iran and Iraq enters its seventh year. In six years of bitter and unremitting conflict neither Tehran nor Baghdad has gained any real or lasting advantage and their hostilities have brought only bloodshed, suffering and sacrifice.

The regime in Tehran was very well aware that Iran's pilgrimage contingent would cause trouble during the Haj, the Iranian leadership had publicly exhorted it to do so. The government of Saudi Arabia was fully expecting some mischief from the Iranian pilgrims, for several years there have been problems from the Iranian contingent on the Haj. But what Iran incorrectly calculated and Saudi Arabia failed to anticipate was the violence of the Iranian demonstrations and the magnitude of catastrophe they caused.

Once again Kuwait, on both the political and geographical peripheries of the Iran-Iraq war, has been subjected to the violence engendered by the Gulf conflict. In the early morning of 17 June synchronised explosions took place at four sensitive points in the countries vital oil installations. Three of the explosions were in the northern and southern pipeline distribution networks at Al Ahmadi and the fourth at an oil well at Maqwa, some 25 kilometres from Al Ahmadi. All the explosive devices were carefully placed at technically sensitive points in Kuwait's oil installation network; among the mixing manifolds of the pipelines leading to the two tank farms and at the head of a very high pressure producing oil well.

On 17 September, 1980 President Saddam Hussein announced Iraq's unilateral abrogation of the 1975 Algiers agreement with Iran which defined the shared sovereignty of the two countries of the Shatt al Arab waterway. Five days later the Iraqi army invaded Iran, and the Iraqi air force struck at targets deep inside Iran. Many observers at once foresaw that the war would bog down in an inconclusive military stalemate. Despite the disruption of Iran's military forces by political purges, expert military assessments put Iraqi armed forces as not much better.

It is a fairly common custom throughout the Arab world for senior officials and civil servants to issue from time to time a bland report on the state of affairs pertaining to their particular responsibilities. Such reports are invariably laudatory in tone and often anodyne in content. They rarely, if ever, reveal anything new. The shrewd and efficient Secretary General of the GCC, Abdullah Bishara, was recently moved to remark to the Saudi daily, ''AI Youm" on the accomplishments of the Gulf Co-operation Council.

The Reagan administration is pressing ahead determinedly with its naval intervention in the Gulf, despite the considerable risks of escalating a conflict which it is officially pledged to resolve. The contradiction (and dangers) of US policy are evident both to Congress - which vainly wishes to postpone the reflagging and escorting of Kuwaiti oil tankers - and to Iran, which sees the whole exercise as a deliberately hostile act directed against itself .

The stunning and unexpected news that Iran has agreed to accept the terms of UN resolution 598 which calls, first and foremost, for an immediate ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq war brought an instant and vast sense of relief to all the countries of the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan at once issued statements welcoming the Iranian decision.