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Bringing crowds on the streets, Saudi Arabia celebrated its first Founding Day on 22 February, following a royal order by King Salman Bin Abdelaziz in late January. The decision to base the celebrations on events in 1727 was particularly significant, as the new national holiday marks an implicit, but significant break from Wahhabi influence on the Saudi state.

Amid their growing distance from western powers, Gulf states have continued to try and maintain a neutral stance on the Ukraine crisis. However, a weakened Russia could lead to the GCC powers stepping up their outreach to the pariah state of President Bashar Al-Assad’s Syria. That engagement has been energetically driven by the UAE, whose foreign affairs and international co-operation minister Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan visited the Syrian capital in November for talks with Assad.

Allies of Iran-backed Shia party Hizbollah under-performed in Lebanon’s 15 May parliamentary elections, when they failed to secure a majority in the 128-seat National Assembly. The shake-up to the Lebanese political environment offers new opportunities for Gulf states that may be thinking about re-engaging with Beirut after a period of keeping their distance.

After months of failed efforts to form a new government, Shia leader Moqtada Al-Sadr’s call for his 73 Council of Representatives (parliament) members (MPs) to resign has thrown the Iraqi political scene into fresh turmoil.

The expensively assembled Qatari football team has performed less well than desired on the pitch, losing their three Fifa World Cup games and finishing bottom of their group. But for the Qatari authorities, the sport itself was always a secondary consideration. Hosting the tournament has given the country a convening power, drawing in heads of state and senior government figures from around the world (and not just from the countries competing at the tournament).

The entertainment revolution promised by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS)’s Vision 2030 will bring the world’s fastest rollercoaster and other attractions to the huge Qiddiya entertainment city, when it opens in 2023. Meanwhile, mesures to lift travel restrictions on women have been welcomed, while the kingdom’s latest reshuffle has been widely interpreted as accelerating moves to list Saudi Arabian Oil Company on local and international stock markets – which will underline Aramco’s status as the world’s biggest oil exporter and further integrate the kingdom into the global economy.

Alongside the bigger question of what imprint the Saudi-led campaign against the Houthis in Yemen will leave on the region is another fascinating question for those with a taste for the intrigues of Saudi royal politics: from where, and whom, did Saudi Arabia’s new assertive position come? Attempts to reply to a large extent fall into the realm of palace speculation, but there are several things worth noting. Saudi Arabia’s willingness and ability to organise and lead such a high-profile campaign is a sign both that the new ruler is happy to assert his regional leadership, and that the broader leadership is less afflicted by the sense of drift which pervaded the last of King Abdullah’s years.

A day after Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) embarked on his tour of fellow Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) member states – starting with Oman where he met Sultan Haitham Bin Tariq Al-Said on 6 December – there was an inconvenient reminder of how hard it is to venture any further afield and how past decisions continue to constrain the Saudi strongman.

They may not see eye to eye on many issues but, in their different ways, all Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) members have made themselves useful to Donald Trump, as the US president seeks to tick off his regional policy points ahead of a bid for re-election in November. Trump’s “Deal of the Century” to wrap up to the Israel-Palestine conflict requires key Arab allies, led by Saudi Arabia, to play an expensive leading role; they have paid lip service to the plan despite public reluctance to support arrangements that cannot play well on the street.

The outbreak of fighting between rival generals in Sudan in mid-April has been met with an increasingly active diplomatic stance by Saudi Arabia, which has taken a clear lead among Gulf countries in responding to the crisis  – offering further evidence of the new approach being taken to international relations by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS).

Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, newly named Emir of Qatar, stands out not just because of the sleek manner of his accession, but because of his youth. Born on 3 June 1980, Tamim had only just celebrated his 33rd birthday when he assumed the role for which he has spent more than a decade preparing. In a culture where respect is very linked to age, holding his own among his senescent Gulf counterparts will require some steel. Three of the five other Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) heads of state are more than double his age; the closest in years, at 63, is Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa.

The much-publicised initiative for Morocco and Jordan to join the Gulf Co-operation Council surprised many when it was announced by new GCC secretary-general Abdelatif Al-Zayani, but it was not a new suggestion – it was proposed some years ago but quietly dropped – and has a political and economic logic for most of those involved.

The application of renewable energy (RE) to replace hydrocarbons in generating electricity could provide an end to the Gulf’s ‘resource curse’, but right now the region lacks some of the tools needed to cope with the new era. Just as oil prices were hitting a three-year high in mid-January, the world’s RE industry was gathering in Abu Dhabi for the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena)’s annual summit.

The blame game began within hours of Sunni extremists taking Mosul (see page 1). Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki blamed members of the army for deserting, saying the seizure of the city was a “conspiracy”. Saudi Arabia blamed Iranian-backed Maliki, with information minister Abdelaziz Bin Mohieddin Khoja saying: “This would not have arisen were it not for the sectarian and exclusionary policies practised in Iraq over the past years”. Former British prime minister Tony Blair blamed the civil war in Syria (and definitely not the 2003 invasion of Iraq of which he was a primary architect). Writing in The Wall Street Journal on 15 June, L Paul Bremer, the former US governor of Iraq, tried to pin it on US President Barack Obama, who, he said, pulled US forces out of Iraq too soon.

By and large, Oman reacted quickly and efficiently to the cyclone that struck the Sultanate in early June