Tehran’s attacks on Bahrain, UAE, and Kuwait are not collateral damage; they are a deliberate pressure strategy with a precise logic
The instinct is to frame Iran’s attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia as either reckless desperation or the inevitable spillover of a larger war. Neither reading is accurate. The Iran Gulf strikes are not a sign of strategic incoherence. They reflect a doctrine that has been building for decades, sharpened by every confrontation, and executed with a specific goal: to make the cost of fighting Iran unbearable for the United States by hitting the infrastructure that makes American power in the region possible.
The standard narrative positions Gulf states as innocent bystanders, caught between a superpower and a rogue regime. That framing obscures the fundamental reality of Gulf security architecture. Every major US military operation in the Middle East launches from, or relies upon, bases embedded in Gulf sovereign territory. When Iran strikes those bases, it is not attacking the UAE or Bahrain. It is attacking the forward operating infrastructure of the United States military. The Gulf states are the host medium of American power projection. Since the night of 28 February 2026, Iran has decided to target that medium directly.
Understanding why requires a close examination of what actually broke, what Iran calculated would work, and why Gulf governments now find themselves paying the steepest price for a war they actively tried to prevent.
The Trigger Was a Betrayal of Active Diplomacy
Just hours before the US-Israeli assault launched on 28 February 2026, Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi announced that Iran had agreed to transfer its stockpile of enriched uranium abroad and to accept strict verification by the IAEA. He described the nuclear negotiations as having achieved “significant, important, and unprecedented progress,” with a second round scheduled for 2 March in Geneva. The strikes came while that process was live.
The US and Israel, preparing to strike Iran under the guise of engaging in negotiations, did not allow any progress in Geneva to stop them from launching a surprise attack. Reportedly exploiting intelligence indicating that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would be holding a meeting with senior security aides on the morning of 28 February, the White House sought to deliver a decisive strike aimed at paralysing the Iranian regime. Khamenei was killed. Iran’s response was immediate and comprehensive.
The Doctrine: Proxy Costs Through Geographic Reach
Unable to strike the US mainland directly, Iran focused on targeting American forces and installations in closer proximity, particularly those associated with US Central Command. By attacking bases located in Gulf states, Tehran sought to inflict material and human losses on US forces while simultaneously signalling the vulnerability of American assets in the region.
This is the core mechanism that the standard coverage misses. Iran is using large salvos of ballistic missiles and loitering munitions, alongside actions by Hezbollah and remaining partner militias across the Middle East, to stretch Israeli and US missile defences and impose costs region-wide. The Iran Gulf strikes are not about punishing Gulf governments. They are about saturating a distributed military network to the point of breaking.
In the short term, increasing US casualties and operational costs could create domestic political pressure in Washington to curtail or end the war. In the longer term, Iran aims to undermine the rationale for the continued US military presence in the Gulf by demonstrating that such bases attract, rather than deter, attacks. The implicit message to Gulf states is clear: the presence of US forces may constitute a liability rather than a guarantee of security.
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Gulf States Refused, Then Were Targeted Anyway
The irony is sharpest for Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Doha, who explicitly refused to be used. In January, media reports indicated that Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman, clearly informed Washington they would not allow their airspace or military bases to be used to launch attacks on Iran. Their refusal was accompanied by mediation efforts, led in particular by Oman and Qatar, to facilitate communication between Tehran and Washington.
Multiple Gulf leaders warned Trump that an attack against Iran would have consequences for the wider region in terms of both security and economics that would ultimately impact the United States itself. Gulf leaders were not given advance notice of Operation Epic Fury, even though it was clear they would become among Iran’s main targets in retaliatory strikes. One anonymous official told reporters that Gulf leaders were “angry that the US military has not defended them enough.”
The political asymmetry here is acute. Gulf states bore the diplomatic cost of mediating, the strategic cost of hosting US bases, and then the physical cost of Iranian retaliation, all without being consulted on the decision that triggered the war.
The Scale of What Has Hit the Gulf
In the first four days of conflict, the UAE suffered the highest number of strikes, both intercepted and successful, followed by Kuwait and Bahrain. In the UAE, strikes targeted Abu Dhabi’s airport and landmark sites. In Kuwait, attacks were carried out on US facilities and oil fields. Bahrain suffered damage in the capital Manama, at the airport, and near US Fifth Fleet facilities.
An Iranian attack damaged a terminal at Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest air hub, while airports in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, and Kuwait also sustained damage. The simultaneous closure of the Gulf’s three major air hubs, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha, is unprecedented, with significant implications for trade and transport. Centre for Strategic and International Studies Iran’s attacks and threats have nearly halted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, sending petroleum prices soaring 40 per cent and roiling the global economy.
By 5 March, Iran had fired over 500 ballistic and naval missiles and almost 2,000 drones since 28 February. This is not an improvised response. It is the activation of a pre-planned attrition campaign.
The Strategic Calculation Behind Civilian Targeting
Iran’s strikes have not been limited to US military facilities. Apartment buildings in Bahrain, hotel districts in Dubai, oil infrastructure in Fujairah: these are deliberate choices. Tehran calculated that if it imposes a high enough cost on the region, Gulf countries will push for off-ramps and de-escalation of the conflict.
The Iranian attacks included missile and drone strikes against military, civilian, and economic sites, aimed at raising the costs of war for the United States and its allies, and at shocking the global economy in a way that might force an end to the war. The economic weapon is the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 to 30 per cent of global oil and gas supplies move. Iran has effectively threatened permanent closure. The threat alone has produced a 40 per cent spike in petroleum prices.
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What Broke the Old Security Assumption
For three decades, Gulf states operated on a foundational assumption: hosting US military bases guaranteed American protection. That compact has visibly fractured. Gulf states long believed that the presence of US military bases on their territory would translate into US security support, especially against Iranian attacks. But as the United States sought to reduce its military presence in the Middle East, Gulf governments had grown concerned that US forces would not come to their defence in times of need.
US military installations have not prevented Iranian missiles from causing very real damage across the Gulf, potentially putting into question the rationale for hosting them. The Gulf states had no part in initiating this conflict, yet they have paid a far larger price than the United States.
The Iran Gulf strikes have, in effect, performed a stress test on the entire post-Cold War Gulf security architecture. The results are damaging. A THAAD-related radar facility in Jordan sustained damage. The US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain was struck. Airports across the GCC were disrupted simultaneously. The layered missile defence shield, long marketed as impenetrable, revealed its limits under saturation.
The Longer Pattern: Iran Has Been Building Toward This
The conflict between the US and Iran became direct in January 2020 when President Trump ordered the assassination of IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani. Tensions further escalated following the October 7, 2023, attacks and the Gaza war, during which Israel weakened Iranian-backed militias across the Middle East. Each confrontation stripped away one more layer of Iran’s proxy buffer. By early 2026, with Hamas degraded, Hezbollah battered, the Assad regime gone, and the Twelve-Day War of June 2025 having damaged its nuclear programme, Iran’s axis of resistance had been systematically dismantled.
Consequently, Iran in 2026 is more reliant on direct strikes than at any point in its post-revolutionary history. The proxies that once gave it deniability and strategic depth are weakened. What remains is ballistic missiles, Shahed drones, and the economic leverage of the Strait. The Iran Gulf strikes reflect not a regime at the height of its power, but one that has exhausted its indirect options and moved to the only instruments it has left.
The Recalibration That Will Outlast This War
Gulf and Iranian diplomats are likely back-channelling on how to prevent further Iranian attacks, with discussion centring on the role and presence of US military infrastructure in Gulf states. It is highly likely that Gulf officials will reassess the utility of American military bases on their territory, which, as this conflict has demonstrated, have neither acted as a deterrent nor protected these states from the impact of missiles and drones.
The overwhelming Iranian assault on the UAE is one of the most noteworthy elements of the initial Iranian response. The UAE suffered almost as many Iranian missiles and drones as Israel in the first 24 hours of the war, despite having vowed it would not allow its airspace to be used to attack Iran. Abu Dhabi and Tehran had maintained a longstanding arrangement to avoid direct confrontation, based in part on Iran’s considerable financial interests in the UAE. That arrangement dissolved in hours.
The Iran Gulf strikes have, therefore, set in motion a structural question that will define Gulf foreign policy for a generation: whether the security guarantee embedded in hosting the United States military is worth the target it places on civilian and economic infrastructure. Iran designed the strikes precisely to force that question. Whether or not this war ends in Iranian regime collapse or a ceasefire, the answer Gulf governments give will reshape the US position in the Middle East more profoundly than any treaty or arms sale has managed in 40 years.