Iran's attack on a US base in Qatar is a nightmare come true for Persian Gulf states

Riyadh: Doha, the quiet capital of Qatar, is usually known for public safety and manicured malls. So the panicked scenes there Monday after Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at a US military base near the city were unlike anything its residents had seen.

Smoking and blackened shrapnel fell from the sky. Interceptors that collided with the missiles and exploded midair were visible from The Pearl Island, a man-made land mass filled with high-end apartments. Shoppers heard loud booms, and screamed and sprinted for cover in the Villaggio Mall, where gondoliers ply an indoor canal.

Lynus Yim, 22, a tourist from Hong Kong who was visiting the mall, said he thought there had been a terrorist attack until he ran outside and saw the missiles. "I thought that I might not make it through yesterday, because I've never been in a situation like that," he said by phone a day after the attacks.

The operation was telegraphed by Iran and no one was killed. Still, the attack that Iran launched in response to the US bombing of its nuclear sites Sunday was a nightmare for the Persian Gulf states, which include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.

Despite years of efforts to build bridges with Iran, curry favor with President Donald Trump and establish their capitals as business-friendly havens in a volatile Middle East, they have found themselves sucked into a conflict that they have sought to avoid.

"It leaves the Gulf in a really uncomfortable spot," said Dina Esfandiary, Middle East geoeconomics lead at Bloomberg Economics. "Their absolute worst fear came true: They were caught in the middle of an escalation between Iran and the US."

Gulf foreign ministers gathered in Doha on Tuesday for an emergency meeting to discuss the attack. The six countries all rely on the United States as their security guarantor, and host tens of thousands of US military personnel and several major US bases.

There has not been a war on their lands since Saddam Hussein, the former leader of Iraq, invaded Kuwait in 1990, and their governments have cultivated reputations as safe destinations for international tourists and investors. But the monarchs that rule the Persian Gulf states have long feared and attempted to counter security threats from Iran, even as they cultivated ties with their neighbor.

Qatar and Oman have particularly friendly relations with Iran. After the attack, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian spoke to the emir of Qatar and expressed "his regret," Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar's prime minister, said in a news conference Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have had more antagonistic relationships with Iran, and went as far as severing diplomatic ties in 2016. The Emirati government has an especially complex position, as it is wary of the security threat posed by Iran but is also one of its largest trading partners.

Those tensions have sometimes led to confrontations, such as in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and the UAE waged a disastrous bombing campaign against the Iran-backed Houthi militia in the 2010s.

The Persian Gulf states are fearful that Iran could obtain a nuclear weapon, although they have called for the country to be dealt with through diplomacy rather than military action. There is also a sectarian dimension to the divide. Several of the Persian Gulf royal families, who are Sunni Muslim, are wary of Shiite-majority Iran exporting its revolutionary ideology to the Shiite citizens among their populations to foment unrest.

"We have been living next to Iran for years and for centuries," said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati political scientist. "We know how difficult Iran is."

Last week, when Saudi, Bahrain and UAE officials met with a bipartisan delegation of US congressional representatives, they mentioned that one of their biggest worries was that Iran-backed militias could target the US forces based in their countries, Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., said.

Such a scenario would draw attention to the heavy US military presence that Persian Gulf rulers host -- a sensitive issue for their citizens. But it would also mean that their region becomes "essentially a pawn, or the arena for these tensions to play out," Esfandiary said.

With the help of US defense systems, all but one of the missiles shot at Qatar were intercepted. Hours later, the emirate announced that it had helped Trump broker a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

"We hope for this issue to be contained as soon as possible and for this chapter to be behind us," Sheikh Mohammed said during the news conference.

But the attack highlighted the vulnerability of the Persian Gulf countries, despite their wealth and security ties with the United States. Warning sirens sounded across Bahrain and the airspace over Dubai, one of the world's biggest aviation hubs, was closed.

"For decades we've been calling out that this is a possibility that we've tried to avert," said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University.

The attack on the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar evoked memories of an Iran-backed drone assault that hit energy facilities in Saudi Arabia in 2019, briefly knocking out half of the kingdom's oil production. That attack, which took place during Trump's first term, is often cited by Saudi officials as the moment when they realized that US protection only went so far, pushing them to reach out diplomatically to Iran. The countries reestablished relations in 2023.

The UAE and Bahrain have also been warming to Iran and the attack in Qatar is unlikely to derail that rapprochement.

"Reaching out to Iran, no matter what, is the policy, is the strategy, is the future course," Abdulla said.

At the same time, the attack has underscored the Persian Gulf countries' reliance on the United States -- a dependency with which their rulers are not entirely comfortable.

Just a few years ago, Saudi and UAE officials spoke about a multipolar world and the necessity of developing a more independent foreign policy as they contemplated an American retreat from the Middle East. Now, it is clear that the United States is "back in the region in the strongest way possible," Abdullah said.

"I think we are stuck with the unipolar world," he said. "There are competing emerging powers, but it is still pretty much Washington that calls the shots."