Iran’s reckless strikes on the Gulf States are consolidating regional opposition to the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s decision to launch missile and drone attacks across the Middle East in the wake of the US and Israeli strikes illustrates Iran’s retaliation strategy. Tehran believes that if it can increase the price of this war throughout the Gulf states and in other countries, those countries may pressure the United States to end the war. However, Iran’s strategy could backfire, leaving it even more isolated. It could also lead many countries that previously said they were opposed to escalation to be more amenable to seeing the regime in Tehran fall from power.
Iran’s wartime decisions resemble how Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein also misjudged the region and the world 35 years ago. In August of 1990, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait. Like Iran’s attack on the Gulf states, Iraq appeared to believe that its invasion would provoke little resistance and gather massive rewards in the form of increased oil wealth. Iraq had fought an eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s, and its army had come off relatively strong and flooded with Soviet-supplied weapons.
Iraq believed it could annex Kuwait and repay Iraq’s debts from the previous war. However, Baghdad steeply miscalculated global opinion and resolve. The Cold War had just ended. The United States was preparing to lead what George HW Bush would call a “new world order” of rules-based international cooperation. Invasions and annexations would have no place in this vision. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, one of the strongest countries in the region at the time, felt it could do what it wanted.
Where Iraq miscalculated was not only in the initial invasion of Kuwait but also in its unwillingness to climb down once it was clear that the United States had assembled an extensive international coalition to pressure Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. Even when the US-led bombing campaign began, the Iraqis began to lash out. Saddam ordered three divisions to invade Saudi Arabia and capture the border town of Khafji on January 29, 1991, an offensive that ended in disaster.
Hussein also ordered a series of Scud missile attacks on Israel, hoping that this would divide the Arab partner forces within the US-led coalition. However, he did not achieve the desired effect, and in the end, Iraq was ejected from Kuwait with tremendous losses. Over a decade of sanctions and isolation for Hussein’s regime followed, until his overthrow by the US invasion in 2003.
Iran’s regime appears to be marching in the same direction. A decade ago, Tehran was far less isolated than today. It had secured sanctions relief in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, and its proxies were on the march across the Middle East. Iran was backing the Houthis in Yemen against Saudi Arabia. It was supporting the Bashar al-Assad regime during the Syrian Civil War. It was also funding and arming various militias in Iraq and Lebanon. The apparent regional sway generated a great deal of hubris in Tehran.
In June 2019, Iran was likely behind attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. These and a series of other attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf culminated in violent protests at the US Embassy in Baghdad and also attacks on US forces in Iraq by Iranian-backed militias. The first-term Trump administration responded with an airstrike that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in January 2020.
The US response didn’t deter Iran. Instead, the regime in Tehran has continued to carry out similar types of provocations in the region over the last few years. This has included drone attacks by Iran or its proxies on shipping, as well as a drone attack by Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah, which killed three Americans in Jordan in January 2024.
After Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, Iran’s regional strategy began to fall apart. With the defeat of Hezbollah by Israel in 2024 and the fall of the Assad regime the same year, Iran lost two key allies. Iran also failed to respond forcefully to US and Israeli strikes on its leadership and nuclear program in June of 2025.
However, Tehran did not hold back following US and Israeli attacks on February 28 and launched strikes on Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in the region. On March 1, many of these attacks escalated with Iranian-backed militias targeting US forces in Erbil in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq.
Iran’s regional escalation is a miscalculation. Most countries in the Middle East want stability in the wake of decades of war. The war on ISIS and the Syrian Civil War tore apart the region. Many countries are still recovering. Other countries, such as Libya and Yemen, are still divided by conflict. The overall view from Riyadh to Damascus is that the region needs peace and quiet to focus on rebuilding and investment.
Many Arab countries saw Israel’s war in Gaza as destabilizing, and they have come to support the Trump administration’s Gaza ceasefire and reconstruction plan.
Today, it is Iran’s attacks that are viewed as disrupting regional stability. Iran’s decision to lash out in this way may be remembered in the same way as Hussein’s decisions in 1990–1991. Like Iraq, Iran will find itself with precious few friends in the region.
About the Author: Seth Frantzman
Seth Frantzman is the author of Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machine, Artificial Intelligence and the Battle for the Future(Bombardier 2021) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is the acting news editor and senior Middle East correspondent and analyst at The Jerusalem Post. Seth has researched and covered conflict and developments in the Middle East since 2005 with a focus on the war on ISIS, Iranian proxies, and Israeli defense policy. He covers Israeli defense industry developments for Breaking Defense and previously was Defense News’ correspondent in Israel. Follow him on X: @sfrantzman.
