According to U.S. President Donald Trump, “the biggest surprise” of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East has been Tehran’s drone and missile attacks on the Gulf countries. Countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have spent years building themselves into global hubs for business, finance, energy, and aviation. Part of that deal was a secure environment backstopped by the presence of U.S. military bases.
Have Iran’s attacks pierced the Gulf’s bubble of security? Will the Gulf countries now join U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran? Or will the events of the last week make them more likely to swing to China instead?
On the latest episode of FP Live, I spoke with two regional experts for answers: Abu Dhabi-based Mina Al-Oraibi, the editor in chief of the National, and Firas Maksad, the managing director of the Middle East and North Africa practice at the Eurasia Group. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page or download the free FP Live podcast. What follows here is a lightly edited and condensed transcript.
Ravi Agrawal: Mina, you’re in Abu Dhabi, quite literally in the thick of things. Iran has attacked the UAE [United Arab Emirates] as much as Israel over the last few days. What is the mood on the ground?
Mina Al-Oraibi: They’ve actually attacked the UAE more than Israel, in terms of percentage of projectiles. Fifty percent of what Iran has sent out to the region, to seven different countries, came toward the UAE. Thank goodness for good defense systems and good planning because over 95 percent of the cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and drones have been intercepted.
How’s the mood? The mood is one of resilience. It’s been really interesting to see how people reacted. In the first couple of days, people were quite shaken. And then people got to know more about the defense systems and the protection it offers, and the government was very quick in communicating with people. There was some concern in the first couple of days about grocery shopping and whether there would be enough supplies; that’s all been addressed. People see that, actually, day-to-day life is OK.
It doesn’t take away from the fact that this has been a shock for many people in terms of the amount of strikes from Iran, and the fact that the UAE (along with the other Gulf countries) was not spared even though they were actually pushing for peace and did not allow their bases to be used. The biggest surprise for many people is that even Oman was targeted by the Iranians, at the Duqm port. Of course, Oman had been the mediator in the previous round of talks. Oman has very close ties to Iran. And so it was a surprise that the Iranians would go out after every single one of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members.
RA: Firas, the Gulf states made a choice over the last several decades to host American military infrastructure. And the logic of American bases was American protection. A piece in FP yesterday by Khalid al-Jaber and Omar Rahman put it very well: “What was intended as a shield increasingly looks like a magnet.” How is this bargain playing out?
Firas Maksad: The Iranian attempt here to play on any divisions and fissures between the U.S. and its GCC partners is simply not working. In fact, from my various conversations with leaders in the region, it’s actually pushing them to close ranks with the United States. We have to be realistic here. It’s not like these GCC states have alternatives to the U.S. security umbrella. They’re not going to be running to China anytime soon. Although almost all of the U.S.’s Gulf partners have China as their largest economic partner, China doesn’t really offer a military defense alternative. Nor does Russia, for that matter.
Iran’s concerted, clear strategy to try to play on those divisions is largely backfiring. Many of those states are right now considering revoking the initial limitations that they had placed on U.S. forces because they did not want to aggravate Iran and were pushing for a diplomatic solution. But now they feel like the Iranians are pressing them and they might not have a choice. I don’t think that they will go on the offensive. Most military experts, certainly here in Washington, D.C., don’t see much of an upside and are not encouraging those countries to actively take the fight to Iran. They see more of a risk of providing Iran the pretext to strike harder on energy targets in these countries. It’s a target-rich environment.
RA: Mina, how are you seeing the Gulf countries adapt their strategies toward the United States, and also toward Israel?
MO: On Saturday, when the Israeli and then American attack on Iran first started, most of the people I was speaking to in the various Gulf capitals were quite frustrated. They had hoped that this could be avoided. By Saturday evening, the sentiment had changed, and there was absolute anger that Iran would choose to target the Gulf countries. So the mood has changed from seeing themselves as not being a party to this war and trying to avoid it or to facilitate talks, to suddenly being in the heart of it because the Iranians dragged them into it. And so, it is a miscalculation from the Iranians.
But it seems to be based on the fact that the Iranians see it as a war of regime change and therefore will strike out as much as they can. I think you will see the Gulf going on the offensive diplomatically rather than militarily. Because I’m understanding that there is an effort now to collect evidence, to look toward international avenues to hold Iran to account in the long term on this war. Even the Europeans that were staying far from this are actually getting more involved. The French are sending more Rafale fighters; the Italians are sending over air support; and the Brits have been active in both Qatar and Jordan.
Especially with the attacks on energy supplies, this also affects Asia. So far, the Chinese and the Russians have only issued statements of condemnation. Both condemned the killing of the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah [Ali] Khamenei. But now you’re also hearing condemnation about the attacks on the Gulf. And so I think you’ll start to see more effort to bring the war to an end from countries not directly involved in the war. Gulf officials haven’t decided to get involved in the war, but they certainly refuse to rule it out. They have said that they might need to engage in a different way.
RA: And a lot depends on the trajectory: If there is significant damage, then calculations might change.
Let’s spend a moment on the defense element of this. Gulf states have bought hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. weapons: Patriots, THAAD systems, the whole infrastructure of missile defense. Meanwhile, in the U.S., there are already concerns about shrinking stockpiles. What is your sense of the missile math for the Gulf countries? Because even if Iran’s missile supply or ability to launch them degrades, they still have drones which could be quite damaging to the Gulf countries.
FM: The interceptor-versus-drone count is concerning and is a factor in this war. Now, these GCC states have significant stockpiles. They have prepared for this day. That doesn’t mean that this is going to be an outright clear advantage. By most estimates, U.S. government sources in the intelligence community tell us that the Iranians have as many as 80,000 drones. To put that into perspective, those same intel community sources point out that Iran had some 2,000 long-range ballistic missiles at the beginning of the conflict. Many of those were taken out, while on their launchers, in the opening hours of the war by both Israel and the United States. Their best estimate is that there’s now some 800 to 900 long-range missiles. Compared to 80,000 drones. That’s why this is increasingly going to be a drone rather than a ballistic missile conflict.
RA: Firas, what is the global economic damage so far? So many airports had to shut down, which has a global impact. The Strait of Hormuz has been choked off; about a fifth of the world’s oil supply goes through there along with many other types of metals and minerals.
FM: That is the key question that keeps coming up for our clients with business exposure to the Gulf, because in recent years, the Gulf built itself up successfully to become this global hub of business. Energy continues to be the main transmission belt impacting the global economy and tying it to the region.
The Iranians have done a couple of things. First, their strategy seems to be based on expanding the war. This is nowhere near an exclusively GCC-centric war. In fact, by the last count, this has touched at least 14, if not 15, countries, from an Iranian naval vessel taken out just yesterday off the coast of Sri Lanka to drones slamming into British air bases in Cyprus and ballistic missiles targeting Turkey and Azerbaijan. So the Iranians are clearly choosing to expand this conflict as a means of defense and getting global attention.
Their second goal is to bring that economic pain to bear, which means going after energy infrastructure in various GCC countries. To date, they have not been very successful for a variety of reasons, including that multilayer defense system that Mina referenced. What’s actually penetrating today is minuscule. So while you do see refineries on fire, it’s largely symbolic. Those are relatively quick fixes once the straits are reopened.
There are concerns about getting oil shipments out through the straits. It’s now been constrained to 80 percent of normal levels. Traffic is no longer going through, down to 20 percent by most estimates. That’s not because the straits are physically closed; the Iranians can’t physically close them. It’s because insurance companies are dropping insurance off shipping vessels that are traversing the strait. Now we hear that the U.S. administration has a plan to provide political risk insurance so that traffic can return, and a plan for U.S. naval vessels to accompany those tankers as they go through. Those that we’re talking to in the energy industries based there say, “We might as well traverse the straits and take on the risk, because there are so many vulnerable tankers laden with oil sitting on both sides of the straits. And if we’re going to be vulnerable, we might as well attempt to take the passage.” So increasingly, everybody thinks that the economic impact, as far as the energy aspect, will start to ease.
RA: Mina, we haven’t talked much about Israel so far. I’m curious how you’re thinking about normalization with Saudi Arabia, for example. I was struck by what you said about the mood shifting from anger that the United States and Israel struck Iran, to anger at Iran for striking the GCCs. How does all of this change sentiments toward Israel?
MO: It is still early days. People are thinking about the immediacy of how this affects them. However, there is an ongoing war now in Lebanon, and if the Israelis continue to strike at the Lebanese, the sentiment against Israel will rise up. People care about Lebanon throughout the Arab world. This is also going to depend on what happens to Gaza and the West Bank. Before this war started, there was concern about annexation in the West Bank, and how President Trump’s Gaza peace plan would be implemented. Any normalization with Saudi Arabia, or how the relationship would develop with Arab countries that already have ties with Israel—be it the UAE, Jordan, or Egypt—was going to be dependent on those factors inside of Palestine, but now we also have Lebanon to think about.
So it isn’t yet clear in the long term, because we don’t know what will happen with the regime in Tehran. [U.S. Sen.] Lindsey Graham, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu, and others of similar political thinking have said that if the regime in Tehran is no longer there, then the doors will be open for peace. That is wrong and simplified because it’s much more complex. The Palestinian issue, while not in headlines at the moment due to the events of the last six days, continues to be at the heart of this.
But the no. 1 consideration now for the Gulf is the protection of their own lands, their people, and their interests, and this threat comes from Iran. What’s playing out at the moment is what many had been concerned about. Israel did strike Doha last year; it was one strike, but it woke everybody up to the fact that you don’t want an Israeli government that feels capable of acting with impunity in the region. So how people view Israel is dependent on what kind of government will emerge, because as much as you need change at the leadership level in Palestine, you need it in Israel, too.
RA: Firas, take us toward the longer term. The rivalry between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, and the disagreements on Yemen, were big talking points, but they’re now buried. When the conflict ends, Israel will likely emerge as the region’s military hegemon.
FM: As you said correctly, the Gulf is not a monolith. Even in the context of the conflict, let alone the post-conflict reality, we need to be careful to not color with a broad brush. While some GCC countries are under concerted attack, Saudi Arabia is not as impacted by this conflict. Some of it has to do with geography. It’s a much bigger country. Its main cities are further away from Iran. So it’s a different reality.
The postwar environment will also be a mixed bag. Countries in the region are adjusting to what a post-Iran Middle East looks like, as I argued in Foreign Policy. Even before the war, the reality was that Iran was no longer going to be able to project power the way it did in previous decades through what it used to call that “forward defense” strategy, relying on proxies. IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] officials boasted that they dominate four Arab capitals: Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and Sanaa. That’s just no longer going to be the Middle East. The question is, what fills that void?
As Mina pointed out, there’s a great deal of concern, especially after the first-ever Israeli strike against a GCC country last September. The threat perception shifted from a weakening Iran, which will be even weaker if the regime survives, to a much more emboldened Israel that restored its deterrence after the Oct. 7 attacks and then some. Bibi doesn’t miss a chance to reiterate that Israel is fighting on seven fronts and winning on all of them. You’ll have countries in the region and in the GCC betting on Israeli-American power and on a new Pax Americana emerging in the region. Other countries—Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and, further afield perhaps, Pakistan, which I dubbed the Islamic coalition in my FP article, although they may prefer to think of themselves as the status-quo powers—are concerned about Israeli power projection capabilities and the fact that there probably isn’t the political will in Washington to keep Israel in check. These countries are actually coming together to try to balance against unchecked Israeli dominance in a post-Iran, postwar order in the Middle East.
If there is a silver lining, the MBS [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] phone call to the leader of the UAE was important. I’m told that the assurances he provided for Saudi military support are genuine. That certainly helps paper over some of the personal aspects of those differences that emerged. But you are left with the structural, longer-term political questions.
RA: Mina, one term we’ve been using to describe the Gulf states for some time now is “geopolitical swing states.” As Gulf states have grown as economic powers, they’ve had an immense ability to be the deciding factor in big, grand geopolitical struggles. How has the last week, but also the last three years, changed their calculation?
MO: The calculation of diversifying alliances and military support that the UAE certainly believed in and other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, have done more recently, has worked out in their favor. Yes, of course, the American security umbrella is important, but it’s not just American. South Korea is playing an important role at the moment, as are France and others. That diversification is important. The swing-state status will continue.
None of us can predict how this war will end. None of us can predict how the Gulf will emerge, because it depends on how this ends and where Iran settles at the end of this and what the region actually looks like. But there are certain principles and foundations that will remain true, be it the energy supply, the capital capabilities, the ability to attract talented people from around the world. I think that will hold true.
This is undoubtedly a crisis, but it’s not one that people didn’t realize. Everybody keeps talking about a bubble that burst, but many people knew that with such close proximity to Iran, the regime might decide to retaliate in this way against the Gulf. This scenario wasn’t far from people’s thinking.
What may change is how the Gulf perceives which countries stood with them at this moment and which didn’t. It will also depend on how the region emerges from this. We have developments in Lebanon that are quite troubling. We have Iraq, where we don’t know what’s going to happen with government formation. It’s all being held off until we see what happens in Tehran. And then, of course, you’ve got Sudan, Yemen—all these crises that haven’t gone away. I think those dynamics will come back into play, and the Gulf will remain hugely important as power brokers.
