Gulf states angry at US over exposure to Iranian strikes

[Deeq A.]

Washington (Somalia Today) – The Trump administration is facing mounting anger from its Arab allies in the Persian Gulf, who say Washington left them exposed to a devastating barrage of Iranian drones and missiles.

The rift began after a surprise US-Israeli military strike on Iran on February 28, which triggered a massive wave of retaliatory bombardments across the region.

Gulf officials say the initial attack blindsided them and left them with too little time to prepare their defences.

Officials from two Gulf nations, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed deep frustration with Washington’s handling of the escalating conflict.

They said the United States ignored repeated warnings that a direct strike on Iranian soil would have catastrophic consequences for the entire Middle East.

One official said regional governments were furious that the US military had prioritised defending Israel and its own strategic bases, while leaving Gulf countries to fend for themselves.

The official warned that his country’s stock of air defence interceptors was “rapidly depleting” under the sheer volume of Iranian fire.

‘Netanyahu’s war’

The governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar have not officially commented on the diplomatic dispute.

But public figures with close ties to the Gulf monarchies have broken the silence, openly suggesting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled President Donald Trump into a needless and destructive regional war.

“This is Netanyahu’s war,” Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, told CNN on Wednesday. “He somehow convinced the president to support his views.”

The conflict has effectively shattered the fragile diplomatic detente brokered between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023, plunging the oil-rich peninsula back into a state of high-alert militarisation.

The White House has pushed back fiercely against the criticism.

Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Iran’s retaliatory ballistic missile attacks had actually fallen by 90 percent because the ongoing US-led “Operation Epic Fury” was crushing Tehran’s military infrastructure.

“President Trump is in close contact with all of our regional partners,” Kelly said.

“The terrorist Iranian regime’s attacks on its neighbours prove how imperative it was that President Trump eliminate this threat to our country and our allies.”

Vulnerable targets

Despite the White House’s assurances, the Gulf states have emerged as lucrative and highly vulnerable targets for Tehran.

The peninsula lies well within range of Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles and is packed with high-profile business hubs, tourist destinations, and vital energy infrastructure that helps drive the global flow of oil.

Since the retaliation began, Iran has fired at least 380 missiles and more than 1,480 drones at the five Arab Gulf nations, according to an AP tally based on official statements.

Local authorities say at least 13 civilians have been killed across the region.

The US military has also suffered direct casualties. Six American soldiers were killed in Kuwait on Sunday when an Iranian drone struck an operations centre in a civilian port, more than 10 miles from the main US Army base.

The husband of one of the slain soldiers, who served in an Iowa-based logistics unit, said the targeted centre was a shipping container-style building with no air defences.

Shahed overwhelms

Behind closed doors, the Pentagon has conceded that it is struggling to contain the crisis.

In classified briefings on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers the United States could not intercept all incoming unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

They said they were facing particular difficulty in stopping the low-flying Shahed suicide drones, leaving American troops and Gulf allies highly vulnerable.

According to a US official familiar with the briefings, Washington simply lacks the broad capabilities needed to counter one-way drone swarms targeting civilian areas or unconventional outposts outside Iraq and Syria.

The security gaps were laid bare this week when drone strikes sparked fires outside the US embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the US consulate in Dubai.

The crisis has grown so severe that the United States and its Middle Eastern allies sought tactical assistance from Ukraine on Thursday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Washington had asked for his military’s expertise in countering the Iranian-designed Shahed drones, which Russia has used extensively against Ukrainian cities.

“Certainly, I’ll take, you know, any assistance from any country,” Trump told Reuters when asked about the unusual request.

Bader Mousa Al-Saif, a Kuwait-based analyst with Chatham House, said Washington had dangerously underestimated the risk to its Arab partners.

“I don’t think they saw that there would be as much exposure to the Gulf,” Al-Saif said, adding that the lack of a defensive plan “speaks to US short-sightedness.”

Economic fallout

Israel’s multi-layered air defence network has deepened the frustration because it has protected the country far more effectively than the ageing Patriot and THAAD systems deployed across the Gulf.

Yet despite their exposure, Gulf nations remain deeply reluctant to launch counteroffensives against Iranian territory, fearing a repeat of the devastating 2019 attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil processing facilities.

Elliott Abrams, a former US special representative for Iran during Trump’s first term, said all parties knew Tehran had the capacity to launch massive strikes.

“The neighbours knew it and were afraid of it. But it was never clear that Iran would actually do it, because they have a lot to lose,” Abrams said.

“These attacks will leave long-term enmity, and if they keep up, the Gulf Arabs may start attacking Iran,” he added.

But for now, the Gulf remains focused on the severe economic damage and instability caused by the open-ended conflict.

“What comes next?” asked Michael Ratney, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and current senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The countries of the Gulf will have to bear the brunt of whatever that is.”

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