ABSTRACT
The majority of the member states were keen to avoid encouraging superpower rivalry in the Gulf. It clears that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC )intended to provide for its own. That the GCC has provided Saudi Arabia with the institutional structure to exercise its influence. Despite the many calls for restraint by the member states when the dispute first started, it was Saudi diplomacy which finally found the compromise solution. It had first started to work towards a forward policy in the Gulf during World War II. It then regarded the region's strategic position between Europe and the Pacific together with the importance of Saudi Arabia's oil resources as vital to the conduct of the war. At the beginning of the war, four member states of the GCC provided it with aid: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar. The revelations of the Irangate hearings and the gradual dissemination of information about arms supplies focused world attention on the conflict.
