Since January 2025, The United States of America has systematically dismantled the prevention side of its counterterrorism apparatus. The agencies responsible for countering radicalization, supporting fragile states, and preventing domestic extremism have either been cut or closed. FBI agents working counterterrorism cases were moved to immigration enforcement.
This retreat is not just domestic. In January 2026, President Trump signed an executive order withdrawing from 66 international organizations including the Global Counterterrorism Forum, the primary multilateral body coordinating international counterterrorism cooperation among thirty countries. Separately, 83% of USAID programs were cancelled, including stabilization activities in Syria and programs managing ISIS detention facilities. The spaces that US counter terrorism engagement once occupied, diplomatically, financially, and operationally, are now open.
Gulf states have begun moving into some of those spaces, though not as a deliberate substitute for what Washington has left behind. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar are pursuing their own strategic interests in the Middle East, and in certain cases those interests overlap with counterterrorism objectives. Saudi Arabia committed over $6 billion in Syrian infrastructure projects within months of Bashar-ul-Assad’s fall in Syria, a collapse that left the country with no functioning institutions and with significant ISIS remnants still operating in Syria and along the Iraqi border. The investment included a $2 billion fund for airports, and $800 million fiber-optic network, and hundreds of humanitarian projects. The GCC formalized counterterrorism cooperation with Damascus through joint ministerial meeting, tied to disarming militias and consolidating state authority. By February 2026, Syria had joined the Saudi-hosted Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. This a functioning, Gulf-anchored counterterrorism framework operating in a space where no Western equivalent exists so far.
The alternative to Gulf engagement in post-Assad Syria is a governance vacuum that ISIS has historically been very good at filling. The group originated in precisely such conditions in post-invasion Iraq, reconstituted itself in the Syrian civil war, and consistently demonstrated the ability to rebuild organizational capacity wherever state authority is absent. If Gulf investment in Syrian infrastructure helps consolidate state authority, disarm militias, and deny terrorist recruitment space, that is a genuine counterterrorism gain regardless of who is writing the cheques.
However, Syria is the best-case scenario. The wider picture is much more complex due to the recent shift in Gulf thinking. On September 9th, Israel struck Hamas leaders in Doha, killing six people. It was the first Israeli military strike on a GCC member state. Qatar hosts the US Al-Udeid Air Base. Washington gave only a brief notice and could not stop the strike. The message to Gulf states was clear: the American security umbrella is no longer reliable. A 2026 Arab Opinion Index found that 77% of regional respondents said American policies threaten security. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kwait and the UAE all signaled they would refuse US use of their airspace for a strike on Iran. Gulf Counterterrorism freelancing is not only opportunistic. It is a response to a partner that has become unreliable.
This architecture is not designed around shared global threat assessments. It is designed around Gulf national interests in a moment of American unreliability. In Syria, those interests and counter terrorism goals happen to align. Elsewhere, they do not.
In Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE spent a decade in the same coalition with different objectives. Riyadh focused on restoring a recognized government and blocking the Houthis. The UAE focused on counterterrorism, port access, and maritime security, targeting Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has operated from Yemen for fifteen years. By December 2025, the divergence became a public rupture. Saudi forces struck a UAE-bound shipment. The UAE withdrew its troops. The departure left the Southern Transactional Council, the primary vehicle of Emirati counterterrorism operations in Yemen, exposed and without support. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has a long record of exploiting exactly this kind of coalition breakdown.
Sudan is worse. The UAE is arming the Rapid Support Forces while Saudi Arabia backs the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Two GCC partners are funding opposite sides in an active war that has already caused one of the decade’s worst humanitarian crises. The UAE has its own reasons, including economic interests and hostility to Muslim Brotherhood-aligned factions in the SAF. But the practical effect is an entrenched armed non-state actor controlling vast territory in a region already under pressure from Sahel jihadist expansion.
These are not isolated failures. They reflect something structural. Gulf counterterrorism is transactional. It follows investment corridors, energy interests, and rivalry with Iran. When those interests align with reducing terrorist threats, Gulf engagement works. When they diverge, counterterrorism suffers.
The world is gradually moving towards a counterterrorism order built on competing Gulf interests rather than shared security frameworks. Global stakeholders should push for a multilateral counterterrorism coordination mechanism that does not depend on a single entity, while, Gulf states should be pressed to replicate the Syria model, not the Yemen one. Also, policymakers everywhere need to understand that bilateral Gulf deals, each driven by national interest and no accountability are not a substitute for what is being dismantled.
What the world needs right now is a counterterrorism framework designed for the global order, not for any one region’s balance of power. That means multilateral frameworks based on shared structures with genuine accountability, not coordination that dissolves the moment national interests diverge. The worsening Iran situation is a reminder of how quickly the threat environment can shift and how poorly transactional counterterrorism handles that kind of volatility. Global stakeholders cannot wait for Washington to return to the table. The work of building something durable has to start with or without it.
