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Oman's Sultan Haitham Bin Tariq Al-Said was unusually active in late May, making trips to Cairo and Tehran in quick succession, just as Egypt and Iran were edging towards a diplomatic rapprochement. Recent reports also suggest Oman may once again be acting as a mediator between Washington and Tehran.

There are many reasons for environmentalists to be suspicions about the UAE's stewardship of the upcoming UN Climate Conference COP28, but it could prove a historic mistake for the mostly western critics to underestimate the summit's president-designate Sultan Al-Jaber. While detractors fear the event is morphing into a vehicle for hydrocarbons industry lobbying, the UAE claims it is serious about renewable energy and is recruiting a potentially powerful southern alliance to its side.

Shifting global political arithmetic seems to have fed into a shift in Iranian political calculations – as had been possible since Donald Trump’s election to lead the ‘Great Satan’ last November. A post-nuclear deal presidential election in which Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seemed happy to leave the way open for President Hassan Rouhani’s return as head of government has become much more competitive as the Islamic Republic’s various factions have reassessed their strategies.

Try as it might, Saudi Arabia can’t put the murder of Jamal Khashoggi behind it. Four months after the brutal killing in Istanbul by a team of men close to Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), the late journalist’s many friends are unwilling to let the matter be forgotten. Saudi Arabia is making great efforts to win back influence, but looks powerless to change the narrative – at least in the West. Adel Al-Jubeir, who is just as active on the international stage as he was before being demoted to minister of state for foreign affairs in January, was in the United States in February.

The creation of a “national military ethos” in the UAE, involving Ras Al-Khaimah (RAK) and other northern emirates, has been increasingly observed since GSN began analysing in 2015 the pattern of military deaths in Yemen and growth of nationalist symbolism around ‘martyrs’ of the Yemen conflict. It is a process that continues to gather momentum.

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) finds itself at the centre of another Gulf-related crisis. Following the furore triggered by the UAE’s decision to stop LSE academic Kristian Coates Ulrichsen from discussing Bahrain at the American University of Sharjah , the university has now cancelled a major Gulf conference planned for London on 25-26 March. The conference, hosted by the LSE Kuwait Programme, was to look at ‘The Arab Spring and the Gulf: Politics, economics and security’; the trigger for the late cancellation was the withdrawal of sponsorship from the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS).

Even since the battle to defeat the Sunni extremists of Islamic State (IS or Daesh) began to make progress, there have been voices warning that Iraq’s fractured political environment and weak economy would remain fertile ground either for a resurgence of the group or the rise of another set of extremists in its place. Now those past warnings are turning into reality, as evidence grows that IS has begun to step up its activities this year.

To mark the tenth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, and to give wider public access to some of our reporting and analysis, GSN has unlocked the archive of its newsletters published in 2003 (accessible at www.gsn-online.com). The invasion was hardly a surprise; US determination to depose Saddam Hussein had been clear for months, but too little thought went into its repercussions. Few of those behind the invasion saw the potential for the turbulence it unleashed. A reading of pre-2003 GSN shows just how inevitable conflict was. ‘Global terrorism’ was high on the agenda as the George W Bush administration came to power.

Obtaining details and confirmations remains as problematic as ever, but some sources are talking about upheavals in the Saudi military/security establishment linked to continuing dynastic struggles in the Kingdom. According to one version of events, as many as 150

As the low price of a barrel of oil begins to tip the fiscal balances of countries across the Gulf region, there is a cogent argument that says now would be an excellent time to wind down energy subsidies. In a time of relative austerity, so the argument goes, the population will find it easier to accept that it needs to assume its share of the burden; lower oil prices also mean the rise in cost to businesses and consumers need not be too dramatic.

The impending official visit of the Jordanian royal couple to Doha signals another step in Qatar’s efforts to rebuild regional relations that were, in part at least, hurt by Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel’s irreverent reporting of regional leaderships.

Has Oman’s version of the Arab spring been overwhelmed by the model of Gulf government reaction to the blossoming of popular movements? That model has become apparent in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, where the heavy hand of the security forces is being mitigated by the promise of limited political change and the spending of more money to create jobs and improve services.

It was on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 that Rudyard Kipling penned his ‘Recessional’, a hymnic warning about the inevitable decline of the British Empire. “Lo, all our pomp of yesterday/ Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!/Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,/Lest we forget – lest we forget!” wrote the poet of the Empire, as Britain’s redoubtable monarch marked 60 years on the throne.

In a major breakthrough for Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, Kuwait’s combative MPs have approved a national five-year development plan, the first for decades, and the creation of a Capital Market Authority (CMA). But, with confrontation looming over MPs’ insistence on passing a $13bn measure to buy up unpaid consumer debts, it remains too early to talk of a lasting transformation of the political atmosphere.

Iranian envoy Ali Akbar Velayati arrived in Moscow on 11 July, carrying a verbal message from Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a written one from President Hassan Rouhani, both addressed to President Vladimir Putin. From the Russian capital Velayati was due to head to Beijing to convey Tehran’s message to President Xi Jinping. Putin’s Syria envoy Alexander Lavrentiev was due in Tehran on 18 July.