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> The gulf nations have not allowed the US to launch from their bases in the region.

This is a categorically false assertion that they have been putting to assuage their local populations - which are heavily opposed to the war and the US support. Maybe not all of them, but some of them, like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are clearly hosting and allowing the US to prosecute the war from their soil. If they weren't, you wouldn't have had the AWACS aircraft getting turned to smithereens in Riyadh.

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AWACS and tankers don’t fire missiles or drop bombs.

It’s perhaps a distinction without a difference but it’s the line that appears to have been currently drawn.

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Doesn't matter. The internal messaging of the Gulf govts to their people initially was that "we're not hosting US forces, why is Iran attacking us??". Now that veneer is being peeled off.
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