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Israel and the US attacked Iran on Saturday morning, assassinating its supreme leader in the heart of Tehran, killing senior commanders and striking the hardest blow the regime has yet taken.
The next hours were decisive for Iran’s response. It threatened harsh retaliation, but when it came, it was directed at Gulf neighbours that had long urged restraint, encouraged diplomacy and warned against war.
In less than 24 hours – between morning and evening – Tehran turned its fire on the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Jordan. By nightfall, Iran had lost its neighbours, pushing itself deeper into isolation, a pariah in its own back yard.
“Your war is not with your neighbours,” Dr Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to President Sheikh Mohamed, said on Sunday. “Return to your senses, to your surroundings, and deal with your neighbours with reason and responsibility before the circle of isolation and escalation widens.”
The following day, the UAE announced closing its embassy in Tehran and withdrawing its ambassador and all members of its diplomatic mission.
Members of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) later said they will take "all necessary measures" to defend their security and territory, reserving the right to respond to what they described as "heinous" and "treacherous Iranian attacks".
Notably, the US, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE issued a separate joint statement in which they strongly condemned Iran's "indiscriminate and reckless missile and drone attacks". Gulf states had previously said they would not allow their territory to be used for attacks against Iran.
While Iran said it had targeted more than 25 US bases across the region, there was little or no immediate information about American casualties or significant damage to those sites. Instead, the impact was felt elsewhere, in Iran’s ties with the Gulf states, which faced a wave of missiles and drones.
Iran targeted residential towers, ports, airports and other civilian facilities in cities long considered safe havens for Iranian citizens. And while the vast majority of attacks were thwarted and missiles intercepted, the strikes shattered years of cautious engagement and reinforced regional fears that Tehran’s hardline rhetoric could translate into uncalculated attacks.
According to experts, Iran's miscalculation in the Gulf is two-fold: first, because attacks, although expected, were not confined to US military assets. With residents from around the world, this turned public opinion against Iran. And second, because Gulf states and particularly Oman, have been attempting to mediate between Iran and the US through nuclear deal talks, Iran undercut those efforts.
“Iran has lost through this action the Gulf sympathy that was pushing with every possible effort towards de-escalation, and it has also sowed doubts that will be hard to erase in the future of its relations with GCC states through its attack on those states,” said Qatar's former prime minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani.
Options to respond
While Tehran reached out to regional leaders, telling them that it does not seek war, Mr Al Thani said he does accept that narrative and instead believes Iran's actions will only push Gulf states towards Tehran's enemies.
“What Iran has done will make GCC states even more steadfast in their relations with allies from outside the region, after trust between them and Iran has been shaken.”
In Abu Dhabi, Minister of State Reem Al Hashimy said the government will “leave no stone unturned to make sure that we do defend ourselves and we are prepared for that.” She spoke to CNN of the country’s calm and measured response but also said the UAE would not sit idly by and suffer the barrage of attacks.
“We have, before this began, been very clear about not having our territories being used to attack Iran,” she explained. “By the same token, if it needs to come to that, it will come to that.”
Gulf states have several options to respond.
“They could grant the US greater operational access to their territories and airspaces, allowing Washington to open new attack vectors against Iran,” Hasan Al Hasan, senior fellow for Middle East Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told The National.
GCC states could also rely on US intelligence support to conduct limited pre-emptive strikes on Iranian missile launchers, he said. They could even go a step further: “In extremis, they could join the US-Israeli campaign.”
The US and Israel have made their intentions of toppling Iran's regime clear.
With senior members of Iran's leadership and government death – including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – it is unclear whether the current government will survive. But if it does, the damage to Gulf-Iran ties may already be done.
“The deliberate targeting of the Sultanate of Oman, a country that has made sincere efforts to mediate and prevent bloodshed, and has sought to keep the door to diplomacy open until the last moment, is an attack on the very principle of mediation,” Majed Al Ansari, adviser to Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, wrote on X.
“This attack represents a dangerous pattern that threatens the role of mediators and undermines one of the most important tools for containing crises and preserving peace and stability,” he said.
