Persian Gulf Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf (), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Indian Ocean (Gulf of Oman) through the Strait of Hormuz and lies between Iran to the northeast and the Arabian Peninsula to the southwest. The Shatt al-Arab river delta forms the northwest shoreline. The Persian Gulf was a battlefield of the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers. It is the namesake of the 1991 Gulf War, the largely air- and land-based conflict that followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The gulf has many
Arab states of the Persian Gulf and Oman come in second and third respectively within the regional ranks. The six Arab states of the Persian Gulf lie in a volatile region and their six governments, with varying degrees of success and effort, try and advance peace in their own countries and other countries. However, Arab countries in the Persian Gulf region - specifically Saudi Arabia and Qatar - stand accused of funding Islamist militants such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP)'s Global Peace Index of 2016, the six governments had varying degrees of success in maintaining peace