The region is still coming to terms with the consequences of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 which tipped the chessboard of Middle Eastern power politics upside down.
Most of those consequences are unwelcome to the oil-rich Gulf Arab states.
In Iraq, the Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein has been replaced by a Shia-led government seen by many here as a proxy of Iran.
The subsequent marginalization of Iraq’s Sunni population in recent years helped give rise to the jihadist group IS.
Today, the region’s leaders are looking nervously at a range of threats, both within their borders and beyond.

The ’Islamic State’

Using the Arabic term ’Daesh’ for the so-called Islamic State, Saudi Arabia’s urbane Foreign Minister, Adel Jubeir, said the organization that has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria under its black banner was not a religious movement.
This year Saudi Arabia has suffered several deadly attacks by IS suicide bombers, mostly targeting mosques, both Sunni and Shia, as it attempts to provoke a sectarian conflict in the Gulf.
Bahrain announced that it had identified 70 of its nationals fighting for IS and a further 24 individuals have been charged with trying to form a branch of IS in Bahrain. Sixteen of these suspects remain at large.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond gave a keynote speech to the conference in which he admitted that the UK had been “too slow in the past to recognize the links between non-violent extremism and violent extremism.”

Iran’s wealth unleashed

There is a fair degree of nervousness here about how Iran will spend the soon-to-be-released billions of dollars in unfrozen funds as a result of the UN-backed nuclear deal.
Many of the Gulf Arab states see Iran as a strategic threat even without its nuclear program.
Both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have accused Iran of interfering in their countries and exporting terrorism.
“We want to have the best possible relations with Iran,” said Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir without a hint of irony, (Iran and Saudi Arabia are regional rivals with a history of mutual distrust).
“But the reason they are not good is because of Iran’s interventions in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen and its attempts to destabilize Bahrain”.
Mr Jubeir said Saudi Arabia welcomed the Iran deal but that Iran had huge infrastructure challenges and the region did not yet know whether it would spend the proceeds from the deal on developing its infrastructure at home – or on funding what he called “aggressive policies” abroad.
Bahrain recently expelled the Iranian ambassador after blaming it for supplying a major arms cache to insurgents. There were no Iranian officials at this year’s Manama Dialogue.