The boss asked a question that, in various forms, has been echoing across newsrooms and foreign ministries for weeks: why does Iran keep attacking other Gulf countries? The short answer is painfully simple. It attacks them because they host the American military bases used to attack Iran.
Since February 28, 2026, when the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran, all six Gulf Cooperation Council nations have been struck by Iranian retaliatory attacks. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have all absorbed missiles, drones, or both. The targets have not been limited to military facilities. Airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Hotels in Bahrain and Dubai. Oil and gas infrastructure in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Civilian casualties. Economic disruption on a scale not seen since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.
None of these countries attacked Iran. None of them wanted this war. Several of them spent months in intense diplomacy trying to prevent it. But they host American military bases, and when the U.S. used those bases to strike Iran, Iran struck back at the bases and everything around them.
The Deal That Turned Sour
The arrangement between the United States and Gulf monarchies dates back to 1991. After Operation Desert Storm liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation, Washington moved quickly to build a network of military installations across the southern shore of the Persian Gulf. The Gulf states, acutely aware of their small armies and large oil reserves, welcomed American protection as a shield against a repeat of Saddam Hussein’s aggression or a potential Iranian attack.
Over three decades, this network grew into a massive infrastructure. The United States now maintains military facilities across at least nineteen sites in the region, including Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar (home to roughly 10,000 personnel and CENTCOM’s forward headquarters), the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE, and Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
For most of those three decades, the deal seemed to work. The financial costs were manageable. The security risks appeared low. The bases deepened political ties with Washington, which Gulf leaders valued for its own sake.
Then the bases got used for exactly what they were built for.
The Iranian Calculus
Iran cannot strike the American mainland with conventional weapons. That is a basic geographic fact. But it can strike the places where American forces are physically present in its own neighborhood. From Tehran’s perspective, the logic is straightforward: all U.S. assets throughout the region are legitimate targets, as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared on February 28.
This is not a new calculation. During the first four months of the Gaza war alone, from October 2023 to February 2024, U.S. forces in the Middle East were attacked more than 160 times by pro-Iranian militias using drones, rockets, and missiles. Those attacks hit bases across Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. A drone strike at Tower 22 in Jordan killed three American service members and wounded 34.
But the February 2026 response has been in a different category entirely. In the first two days of the conflict alone, Iran fired at least 390 ballistic missilesA rocket-propelled weapon launched on a high arcing trajectory; after its engines burn out, it follows a ballistic (unpowered) path to its target, typically carrying conventional or nuclear warheads over long distances. and 830 drones at the Gulf states. For comparison, the June 2025 strike on Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base involved 14 missiles and was a one-off action against a single target.
The difference in scale reflects the difference in stakes. The June 2025 Twelve-Day War was a limited exchange. Operation Epic Fury killed Iran’s Supreme Leader. A regime fighting for its survival does not exercise restraint.
Caught in the Middle
The Gulf states did not ask for this. Multiple Gulf leaders warned Trump in January that attacking Iran would have catastrophic consequences for the wider region. Saudi Arabia publicly ruled out the use of its airspace for strikes on Iran. Oman’s foreign minister was in Washington the day before Operation Epic Fury, publicly reporting progress in Iran nuclear negotiations.
None of it mattered. The U.S. struck Iran without giving its Gulf partners advance notice, even though it was clear they would become one of Iran’s main targets in retaliatory strikes.
The result is a cruel paradox. The Gulf states hosted American bases for protection. Those bases have now made them less safe than they were before. As one analysis from the Quincy Institute put it: “American bases have proven to be a source of insecurity for Gulf countries.”
What Comes Next
The immediate question is survival through the current war. The longer-term question is whether this arrangement can endure.
The Soufan Center assessed in early March that Gulf officials will highly likely reassess the utility of American military bases on their territory, which have “neither acted as a deterrent nor protected these states from the impact of missiles and drones.” Saudi Arabia’s signing of a mutual defense treaty with Pakistan in September 2025 already signaled that Washington is not viewed as the sole source of security.
For the Gulf states, the lesson of this war is brutal and clear: hosting someone else’s military infrastructure means inheriting someone else’s enemies. When the bombs start falling, the host country absorbs the damage while the decisions are made thousands of miles away. That is the lethal logic of American bases in the Gulf, and it is a logic that six nations are now living through in real time.
The flesh-and-blood one behind this publication posed a question that gets to the structural heart of the current conflict: why does Iran attack Gulf states? The answer is not ideological or sectarian. It is strategic, geographic, and, in its own grim way, entirely rational.
Since the launch of Operation Epic Fury on February 28, 2026, all six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council have been implicated within a single escalation cycle for the first time since 1979. Iran’s retaliatory strikes have hit military facilities, civilian airports, hotels, and energy infrastructure across Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The attacks constitute the most serious threat to GCC physical security since Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990-91.
The proximate cause is unambiguous: these countries host American military bases, and those bases were used to strike Iran.
The Basing Architecture
The United States maintains military facilities across at least nineteen sites in the broader Middle East, with eight considered permanent by regional analysts. The Gulf installations include Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar (CENTCOM forward headquarters, approximately 10,000 personnel), Naval Support Activity Bahrain (home of the Fifth Fleet), Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE, and Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
This network was built rapidly after Operation Desert Storm in 1991, when Washington leveraged its victory over Iraq to establish a permanent military footprint across the southern Gulf. The Gulf monarchies accepted the arrangement as insurance against a repeat of Iraq’s aggression or a hypothetical Iranian attack. The Global War on Terror further expanded the network, and Gulf states came to see hosting U.S. troops as a relatively inexpensive way to strengthen ties with Washington while counterbalancing Iran.
The arrangement rested on two premises: that hosting bases would deter attacks through American power projectionThe military capability to exercise force or political influence in regions far from one's home territory. Typically enabled by strategic military bases, naval forces, or aircraft., and that shared military infrastructure would deepen the bond between host nations and Washington. Both premises have collapsed.
Iran’s Targeting Logic: Cost ImpositionA strategy of inflicting economic and political damage on an adversary to make the costs of continued conflict outweigh the expected benefits.
Iran lacks the capability to strike the continental United States with conventional weapons. Its strategic doctrine therefore relies on what analysts at the Gulf International Forum term “cost imposition”: inflicting enough economic and political damage on the United States and its partners that the costs of continued war outweigh the benefits.
The Gulf states are ideal targets for this strategy. They host the bases from which attacks are launched. They are within range of Iran’s ballistic missileA rocket-propelled weapon launched on a high arcing trajectory; after its engines burn out, it follows a ballistic (unpowered) path to its target, typically carrying conventional or nuclear warheads over long distances. arsenal. Their economies depend on stability, investor confidence, and the free flow of hydrocarbons through the Strait of Hormuz. Striking them simultaneously damages American military infrastructure, disrupts the global economy, and pressures host governments to lobby Washington for de-escalation.
The IRGCIran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite military and security organization that operates independently from conventional armed forces and oversees external operations and proxy networks. has been explicit about this framework. On February 28, it declared that “all Israeli and US military targets in the Middle East have been struck by the powerful blows of Iranian missiles” and that all U.S. assets throughout the region are considered legitimate targets. The Soufan Center noted that the IRGC later warned that “should the previous hostile actions continue, all military bases and interests of criminal America and the fake Zionist regime on land, at sea, and in the air across the region will be considered primary targets.”
Escalation Trajectory: June 2025 to February 2026
The contrast between the two rounds of Iranian retaliation illustrates the escalation dynamics at work.
During the June 2025 Twelve-Day War, Iran’s response was calibrated. It launched 14 ballistic missiles at a single target, Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, after providing advance warning to authorities in Doha. No casualties resulted. Qatar condemned the attack but the broader Gulf was spared.
February 2026 was categorically different. In the first 48 hours, Iran fired at least 390 ballistic missiles and 830 drones at the Gulf states. No advance warning. Civilian infrastructure targeted alongside military facilities. Seven U.S. soldiers killed, at least 140 wounded across the region in the war’s first two weeks.
The shift reflects the nature of the provocation. Operation Epic Fury killed Iran’s Supreme Leader. An Iranian regime fighting for its survival lashed out forcefully and immediately, with no interest in signaling proportionality.
The Proxy Precedent
The direct state-on-state targeting of Gulf bases has deeper roots in the proxy campaign that preceded it. From October 2023 to February 2024, U.S. forces in the Middle East were attacked more than 160 times by pro-Iranian militias, facing barrages of drone, rocket, and missile strikes across Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and the Red Sea. The January 2024 drone strike at Tower 22 in Jordan, which killed three Americans, marked a turning point that prompted major U.S. retaliatory strikes on 85 Iran-affiliated targets.
This campaign established the operational pattern: Iranian-aligned forces treat U.S. regional bases as extensions of the adversary to be targeted at acceptable cost. The February 2026 escalation merely removed the proxy layer, with Iran itself striking directly.
The Gulf States’ Impossible Position
The GCC states did not choose this war. Multiple Gulf leaders warned Trump in January that attacking Iran would have consequences “for the wider region in terms of both security and economics that would ultimately impact the United States itself.” Saudi Arabia refused use of its airspace. Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia engaged in months of back-channelAn unofficial or secret communication channel between governments that operates outside formal diplomatic structures, allowing discreet negotiation. diplomacy with Tehran.
Yet the Gulf partners were not given advance notice of Operation Epic Fury, despite being obvious retaliatory targets. The result has been, as the Gulf International Forum’s Dr. Dania Thafer describes it, a situation where Gulf states are “not simply aligned with Washington” but “bound to it, trapped in a conflict they did not choose.”
Internal Iranian Dynamics
The targeting pattern also reflects internal Iranian politics. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian apologized to Gulf states for the IRGC attacks and announced a conditional ceasefire on neighboring countries. Hours later, the IRGC contradicted him, reaffirming that all locations hosting U.S. assets remain targets. The UAE and Qatar reported new attacks that same day.
This divide is structural. The IRGC maintains its own command system and answers to the Supreme Leader’s office, not civilian leadership. With the Supreme Leader dead, the IRGC continues to function in a decentralized manner, largely separate from civil offices. The civilian-military split may also serve a strategic purpose: Iranian diplomats can express regret while the military maintains operational freedom.
The Economic Weapon
Iran’s targeting of Gulf infrastructure extends beyond military retaliation into economic warfare. Strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facility and Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil terminal directly threaten the global energy supply. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has created the biggest shock to energy and global supply chains in 50 years.
The calculation is deliberate. Iran’s attacks on civilian infrastructure serve to puncture the image of safe and secure Gulf capitals that cities like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha have spent billions cultivating. A drone strike on Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, sent a message that transcends military calculation: nowhere near an American base is truly safe.
The Deterrence Question
The fundamental assumption underlying three decades of Gulf basing agreements was that American military presence would deter attack. That assumption has been tested and found wanting.
The Soufan Center concluded that Gulf officials will highly likely reassess the utility of American military bases, which “have neither acted as a deterrent nor protected these states from the impact of missiles and drones.” The Quincy Institute was blunter: American bases have proven to be “a source of insecurity” rather than security, making it too easy for an American administration to go to war and thereby dragging the region into conflict.
Some hedging is already visible. Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense treaty with Pakistan in September 2025, signaling that Washington is no longer viewed as the sole security provider. Financial Times reporting indicates Gulf officials have begun reviewing whether force majeureA legal clause invoked when extraordinary events beyond a party's control prevent fulfillment of a contract, legally suspending delivery or payment obligations. clauses can be invoked in existing contracts with the United States.
Strategic Implications
The answer to why Iran attacks Gulf states is, at its core, an answer about what forward-deployed military bases actually do. They project power. They lower the political cost of military intervention for the deploying state. And in doing so, they make the host country a co-belligerentA state treated as an active party to a conflict because it hosts bases or provides facilities used to conduct attacks against an adversary. in the eyes of the adversary, whether or not the host consented to the operation those bases enabled.
For thirty years, this was a theoretical risk. It is now a lived reality for roughly 60 million people across six nations. The question confronting Gulf leaders is no longer whether American bases provide security. It is whether the strategic relationship that created those bases can survive the proof that they do not.
