Iran’s Strategic Moves and the Destabilization of the Middle East
“December 2nd, 1971. The day when the United Arab Emirates was formally established, and it was supposed to be a joyful day for them. But just 2 days ago, Iran did something nasty that turned the UAE into a sworn enemy overnight. On the morning of November 30th, Iranian forces landed on Abu Musa, Greater Tun, and Lesser Tun.
These islands were claimed by the UAE. But when Iranian forces seized them, they expelled the local Arab populations, demolished police stations, schools, and declared the islands Iranian territory. Today, almost every one of Iran’s neighbors hates it to the core. There are two reasons behind this. First is the clearly visible Shia Sunni conflict.
But second is how Iran exploits this divide to achieve their real sinister goals. After the Iran Israel conflict began, Iran did something almost no one could believe at first glance. It was a Muslim country attacking another Muslim country. But then they found the Shia Sunni divide, the narrative that was presented to the world as the real cause of conflicts. The root cause of this conflict began with a split that took place in the 7th century.
It was right after the death of the prophet Muhammad. The question at that time was simple but explosive: “who should lead the Muslim world after him?” One group believed that leadership should go to Ali Iban Abi Talib, the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, and that only his descendants had the rightful claim to lead. That group became what we now call the Shia.
But a large group among the prophet’s companions believed the answer lay in consultation. They argued that the leader of the Muslim community known as the Khalif should be chosen through agreement among the most respected members of society. It shouldn’t happen through bloodline, not through inheritance, but through collective decision.
Following that process, Abu Bakr, one of the prophet’s closest companions and his father-in-law, was selected as the first califf. Those who accepted this decision and followed this path of the chosen leadership became what we now know as the Sunni Muslims. That one disagreement over a thousand years ago has never been truly resolved.
For several centuries, this remained largely a theological dispute. But in the 16th century, the Safavidit dynasty in Iran made a deliberate decision to declare Iran an officially Shia state. And the reason was not purely religious. It was strategic. They wanted to politically separate themselves from the powerful Sunni Ottoman Empire right next door.
From that moment, sectarian identity stopped being just a matter of faith. It became a tool of state craft and political rivalry. And that dynamic continued for nearly 500 years. Fast forward to today. Roughly 85 to 90% of the world’s Muslims are Sunni. Shia Muslims make up only 10 to 15% globally. They have clear majorities only in Iran, Iraq, and Azharaban.
Significant Shia minorities also exist in Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. But since 1979, Iran has consistently positioned itself as the protector of Shia communities across the Muslim world. This position brought them support, but it wasn’t strong enough. So, they used a genius tactic.
They also presented themselves as the voice of the oppressed against Western and Gulf Arab influence. That framing has given Iran an ideological reach far beyond what its numbers alone would suggest. That framing also became its deepest curse. It was July 31st, 1987. During the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca, clashes broke out between Iranian pilgrims and Saudi security forces.
It killed over 400 people. The clashes occurred when Iranian demonstrators held unauthorized protests during the Haj. They were allegedly protesting against the US and Israel that led to riots and stampedes and the incident poisoned the relationship between Saudi and Iran. Iranians smashed embassies in Thran as retaliation.
It became one of the most serious flash points between the two countries in that era. Saudi Arabia and Iran are not just political rivals. They are competing for something much bigger. They want to be seen as the true leader of the Islamic world. Saudi Arabia holds the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina, which gives the kingdom a unique religious authority in the eyes of the Sunni Muslim world.
So when Iran after 1979 began claiming to represent the entire global Muslim community, Riyad took that as a direct challenge to its own legitimacy. Two countries, two ideologies, both claiming to speak for Islam. But it was not just ideological. When Iran and Iraq went to war in the 1980s, Saudi Arabia pumped tens of billions of dollars into Saddam Hussein’s war effort, specifically to stop the spread of Iran’s revolutionary ideology into the Arab world.
One of the factors Saudis fear the most is the 10% population, the factor that decides its internal stability. Saudi Arabia has a Shia minority, roughly 10 to 15% of its population. It is concentrated heavily in the eastern province in areas like Kif. And the eastern province is not just any other region.
It is where most of Saudi Arabia’s oil sits. Riyad has long suspected that Iran maintains influence over the Shia community and has backed unrest in Kif and surrounding areas, essentially trying to destabilize the kingdom from within. That suspicion became an open crisis in 2016 when Saudi Arabia executed prominent Shia cleric Namir Anamir.
After this incident, Iran’s protesters stormed and attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran. Saudi Arabia cut all diplomatic ties and several of its allies followed. The two countries did not restore formal relations for 7 years. Saudi’s long-term fear is the economy. Saudi Arabia’s entire future is built around vision 2030, an ambitious plan to transform the kingdom into a global investment and tourism hub and move beyond oil dependency.
But that plan only works in a stable region. Iranian strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure, which happened in 2019 and again in 2026, are seen in Riyad as deliberate attempts to derail Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation before it can succeed. But what Saudi fears the most is Iran’s devil. Saudi officials have stated this clearly that if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia will pursue one as well.
By 2026, Iran had pushed its uranium enrichment to near weaponsgrade levels. And that development has become the single biggest factor driving Saudi defense decisions. But suddenly, a broker came to make Saudi and Iran friends again. In 2023, China brokered the Beijing agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, restoring diplomatic ties after that 7-year break.
And in April of 2025, Saudi Defense Minister Khaled bin Salman flew to Tehran and met directly with the Supreme Leader Ali Kame. It appeared, at least on the surface, that both sides were choosing managed rivalry over open conflict. But it is important to understand what Iran actually thinks of Saudi Arabia because this rivalry has two sides.
Iranian leaders do not see themselves as the aggressor. They frame Saudi Arabia as a US-ed monarchy that has historically backed extremist groups across the region and has actively worked to encircle Iran. That mutual suspicion deeply held on both sides is exactly why diplomatic agreements struggled to hold. And that is precisely what happened.
After US and Israeli strikes on Iran in February of 2026, Iran responded by firing missiles and drones directly at Saudi cities, arguing that the kingdom was facilitating Western military operations in the region. Whatever had been rebuilt through the Beijing agreement collapsed almost immediately. But one of Iran’s arch enemies is the one that has shed the blood of millions, not for days or for weeks, but for eight years.
The Iran Iraq war continued for eight brutal years. The war started in 1980 and killed over a million people. Both sides were insanely damaged. Despite that history, what happened in 2003 essentially handed Iran everything it could ever win on the battlefield. Iraq’s position in this rivalry is unlike any other country in the region because Iraq is not just a neighbor that fears Iran.
It is the country Iran has most deeply penetrated. When the US invaded Iraq and dismantled the existing power structure, it removed the one force that had kept Iran in check on its western border. What followed is what Iraqi nationalists describe as a creeping invasion, not through tanks and soldiers, but through politics, money, militias, and religion.
But what makes Iraq’s situation genuinely complicated is that the resentment of Iranian influence runs across every community, not just one. Around 60% of Iraq’s population is Shia. So many of the political parties and armed factions that now dominate Iraqi politics have direct financial and organizational ties to Thran and the IRGC.
This gives Iran simultaneous influence over Iraq’s foreign policy, its security institutions, and its energy sector. The most visible instrument of that influence is the Popular Mobilization Forces or the PMF. These are a collection of mostly Shia militias that were originally formed to fight the Islamic State. They played a genuine role in defeating ISIS.
But once that fight was over, they did not dissolve. They became embedded power centers inside the Iraqi state. But many of them take orders from Thran rather than from the Iraqi prime minister. This became serious enough that the 2026 US National Defense Authorization Act explicitly made American security assistance to Iraq conditional on the Iraqi government reigning in these militias.
And the ones getting crushed in this political battle are the ones who have nothing to do with it. Iraq’s Sunni minority has watched Iranianbacked militias operate across strategic regions and they fear that Thran is using sectarian identity to systematically push Sunnis out of those areas. For them, Iranian interference feels existential, not just political.
Among Iraq’s Shia population, the picture is more divided than it looks from the outside. A significant portion of Iraqi Shia, including those led by Mktar Alsader, actively reject the Iranian model of governance. They do not want to replicate Iran’s system inside of Iraq. Their position is direct. They accuse Iran of turning Iraq into a global market for its goods and a battlefield for its wars.
But what connects everyone is what all of them survive on. By 2026, Iran had been using water and gas supplies as tools of political pressure. It had repeatedly restricted river water flowing into Iraqi territory and cut back gas exports that Iraq depended on for electricity. The result has been power shortages, water scarcity, and widespread anti-Iranian protests in Iraqi cities.
Fighting against existing enemies is justified, but the most foolish thing a country can do is to turn a friend into your enemy. Qatar’s relationship with Iran has always been different from the rest of the Gulf. While Saudi Arabia and the UAE viewed Thran with open hostility, Qatar chose a different path. It tried to stay neutral, keep channels open and position itself as a mediator.
For decades, that strategy actually worked. And there was a very practical reason for this. Qatara and Iran share the world’s largest offshore gas field. Qatar calls it the North Dome. Iran calls it South Potter. That shared resource makes energy cooperation between the two countries a structural reality, not a choice.
“You cannot be in open conflict with the country you must share your most valuable asset with.” And that logic was severely tested in 2017. When Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt imposed a full blockade on Qatar. They partly accused Doha of being too close to Iran. Qatar’s response was to lean further into that relationship out of necessity.
Iran opened its airspace and ports to Qatari aircraft and ships and provided food imports during the blockade. That gave Qatar a strong practical reason to preserve its ties with Thran even after the blockade ended in 2021. After the crisis, Qatar leaned into the moderator role even more deliberately. It welcomed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, called for regional dialogue over confrontation, and maintained functional diplomatic relations with Thran while every other Gulf state was moving in the opposite direction. Qatar genuinely believed that being the one country Iran trusted gave it unique value in the region.
But in 2025, that belief was shattered. An Israeli strike on Iran’s South Potter’s gas field triggered a threat of Iranian retaliation that made no distinction between adversaries and neutral parties. Qatar, who had long gone out of its way to avoid becoming Iran’s enemy, found itself in the line of fire anyway.
On March 18th, 2026, Iranian long-range missiles struck Ross Leafon industrial city. It is the largest LG facility in the world and the beating heart of Qatar’s entire economy. The attack caused extensive damage and knocked out roughly 17 to 20% of global LG supply. Qatar Energy was forced to declare force majour.
For a country whose wealth and global relevance still rests almost entirely on that infrastructure, this was not just a military strike. It was an attack on Qatar’s existence as a modern state. Qatar’s response was swift and unlike anything it had done before. On March 19th, 2026, Doha declared all Iranian military and security attaches at the Iranian embassy persona nonrada and ordered them out of the country within 24 hours.
Then the Qatar State Security Service announced the arrest of 10 people, both citizens and residents, who were members of two IRGC linked cells operating inside Qatar. This was the first time Qatar had publicly acknowledged that Iranian proxies had been operating within its own population. Qatar’s prime minister stated plainly that Iran’s targeting of Gulf neighbors was premeditated and systematic and that it had destroyed what he called the “illusion of Qatar diplomatic immunity.”
But Iran’s strangest enmity is with a country that wasn’t even formed when it began. The UAE’s relationship with Iran has always carried a fundamental contradiction. Dubai has been one of the biggest trading hubs for Iranian merchants and shipping for decades. Iranian money, its goods, and Iranian business networks have moved through Dubai freely.
But Abu Dhabi, which controls UAE’s security policy, has consistently viewed Iran as a direct strategic threat. That split between economic reality and security concern has defined the UAE’s position for years. But underneath all the politics sits a territorial wound that has never healed. On November 30th, 1971, just 2 days before the UAE was formally established as a country, Iranian naval forces seized three islands, Abu Musa, Greater Tun, and Lesser Tun.
Iranian forces expelled the local Arab populations, demolished police stations and schools, and declared the islands Iranian territory. The UAE had pushed for decades to take this dispute to the International Court of Justice. Iran has refused every time, calling the islands an inseparable part of its territory. For the UAE, this is not a historical footnote.
It is an active, unresolved occupation. Beyond the islands, the UAE backed sanctions against Iran, joined the Saudiled coalition in Yemen against the Houthis. It even spent billions on sophisticated air defense systems specifically built to counter the Iranian missile threat. Houthi attacks out of Yemen were a particular concern because they directly targeted the transport and logistics networks that the UAE economy runs on.
In 2026, the UAE became the most heavily targeted country in the Gulf. Iran strikes hit the Burj Alab, the Dubai International Finance Center, the Jabel Ali port, the Ruaiz refinery, and the Fushara petrochemical complex. These were not random targets. They were the pillars of the UAE’s identity as a global financial and trade hub.
The IRGC explicitly accused the UAE of facilitating US military operations and used that as justification. So, the UAE unleashed its biggest weapon. It didn’t fire a single bullet, but it did far greater damage to Iran than Iran ever did to the UAE. As of May 1st, 2026, the UAE announced it is exiting OPEC. This was a direct result of the war’s disruption on its energy strategy.
The UAE’s decision to exit OPEC was not just an energy policy move. It was a signal that the war was beginning to crack one of the most powerful economic alliances in the world. In the short term, the exit has not shifted much. The war itself has already done the damage. OPEC’s total output dropped 27% to 20.79 million barrels per day in March of 2026.
With the straight of her under pressure and the UAE infrastructure under attack, the UAE cannot meaningfully ramp up production anyway. This leaves OPEC changing very little for anyone right now. But in the long term, once the conflict stabilizes, the UAE will be free to produce without quota restrictions with an ambition to push output to 5 million barrels per day.
That volume hitting the market unconstrained could flood global supply, push oil prices down, and erode the pricing power OPEC has maintained for decades. For Iran, that scenario is genuinely damaging. Its economy is already under severe pressure from sanctions and the cost of war. It depends heavily on oil revenues to function.
A post-war environment where the UAE produces freely, OPEC’s unity is fractured, and global prices are falling. But Hitaron’s finances at exactly the moment it needs them the most. Some analysts are already describing the UAE’s exit as the beginning of the end for OPEC as an effective cartel. And that is another long-term consequence of a conflict Iran chose to escalate.
The UAE punished Iran by exiting OPEC. But do you know what Kuwait did against Iran? They arrested photographers. In 2003, during the US-led invasion of Iraq, Kuwaiti authorities arrested an IRGC spy cell. They were surveilling and photographing American military bases inside of Kuwait, sending troop movement data back to Tehran.
Then in 2015 came what became known as the Abdali cell. Security forces seized 19 tons of ammunition, 144 kg of explosives, and 68 kg of TNT, all linked to the IRGC and Hezbollah. Interrogations revealed the cell had been planning to demolish the social and economic foundations of the country. By 2026, the same pattern returned. On March 25th, Kuwait’s Ministry of the Interior announced the arrest of a Hezbollahal linked network planning the assassination of senior state figures and recruiting people for sabotage operations.
The cell included five Kuwaiti citizens and one individual with revoked citizenship. 14 additional suspects, including Lebanese and Iranian nationals, had already fled before the arrests could be made. Then in April of 2026, Iranian strikes hit the Alamadi refinery and a desalination plant. It killed four soldiers and six civilians.
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation was also struck by an Iranian drone. The government called for an immediate ceasefire and began openly questioning the direction of GCC foreign policy towards Iran. Kuwait’s geography makes it particularly exposed. It sits directly next to southern Iraq where IRGC backed militias are most concentrated.
It makes it a natural target for the kind of low visibility asymmetric attacks Iran specializes in. Kuwait has always tried to walk a careful line with Iran. While Saudi Arabia and the UAE took harder positions, Kuwait maintained diplomatic and economic ties with Tyrron while also complying with US and UN sanctions. For small countries sitting right next to IRGC controlled regions of southern Iraq, that balance was not just foreign policy. It was a survival strategy.
Kuwait has also domestic reason to tread carefully. Roughly a quarter of its national population is Shia. That makes the government sensitive to how its stance on Iran plays out at home. Another one of Iran’s tiny enemies is what Iranian leaders have historically referred to as their “14th province.”
Bahrain situation is unlike any other Gulf state. The threat Iran poses here is not just external. It runs through the middle of Bahraini society itself. Bahrain is a small island kingdom ruled by a Sunni royal family, but roughly 65 to 75% of its population is Shia. That demographic reality has made Bahrain view Thran as not just a regional rival but as an existential threat.
Iranian leaders refer to it as their “14th province.” Bahrain’s fear is grounded in real events. In 1981, just 2 years after the Iranian revolution, Iran backed a coup attempt against the Bahini government through a group called the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain. The plot failed, but it established a permanent baseline of suspicion that has shaped Bahini policy ever since.
Then came 2011 when the Arab Spring protests broke out. Bahin saw large-scale demonstrations demanding political reform. The government, backed by a Saudi peninsula shield force, crushed the movement and framed the entire uprising as an Iranianbacked subversion attempt rather than a domestic political protest. That decision deepened sectarian divisions sharply and turned political descent into something the state treated as treason on behalf of a foreign power.
Bahrain hosts the US Navy’s fifth fleet. As you have guessed, it makes it a primary target in any Iranian strike against American assets in the Gulf. That is not a theoretical concern. It shapes Bahinian security calculations every single day. And in 2026, those fears became concrete. Bahin intercepted more than 650 Iranian missiles and drones, including strikes targeting the fifth fleet headquarters and critical aluminum smelters.
The government responded with its most aggressive internal crackdown yet. Since February 28th, 2026, authorities arrested over 200 people, mostly Shia, on charges of sympathizing with Iran. 14 individuals were specifically charged with spying for the IRGC. They were accused of leaking state secrets and receiving military training inside of Iran.
The government stated that some of its own nationals had been sending post-strike damage assessments directly to the Iranian military while the attacks were still ongoing. On April 27th, 2026, Bahin revoked the citizenship of 69 individuals for supporting what it called “hostile Iranian acts.” They also ordered a broader citizenship review, targeting activists accused of operating under Iranian influence.
For the ruling Alu Khalifa family, this was not just a foreign policy problem. It is a fight to hold the state together while an external power works to pull it apart from within. Beyond the history, the religion, and the politics, there is another reason Arab countries fear Iran, and that is the raw military and strategic leverage Thran holds over every single one of them.
Iran holds structural advantages that no amount of diplomacy or defense spending has fully neutralized. And in 2026, those advantages became visible to the entire world. The most powerful one is geography. Iran sits among the northern shore of the straight of Hermuz, the narrow waterway through which 20 to 30% of the world’s oil and a significant share of global LNG passes every day.
In March of 2026, Iran imposed a deacto blockade by requiring all ships to clear Iranian waters before passing through. Most traffic halted. Qatar’s LG exports were stranded, and Brent crude spiked above $120 a barrel almost immediately. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have limited bypass pipelines, but countries like Kuwait and Qatar have no real alternate route.
Iran did not need to fire a single missile to inflict serious economic damage. It simply uses the geography it sits on. But when it comes to survival, Gulf states rely on coastal desalination plants for 70 to 90% of their fresh water. Those plants sit exposed along Gulf coastlines well within range of Iranian missiles and drones.
In 2026, Iranian strikes targeted several of these facilities, and Iran has been probing GCC water utility systems through cyber operations for years. A sustained disruption would not just be an inconvenience. It would simultaneously destroy households, industry, and the oil and gas sector. Gulf populations view any strike on water infrastructure as warfare against civilians.
On the military side, the numbers tell a deeply uncomfortable story. Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile exceeds 2500 weapons. During the 2026 conflict, the scale of incoming fire pushed Gulf air defense systems to their limits almost immediately. The UAE and Kuwait burned through roughly 75% of their Patriot interceptor stocks. Bahrain depleted around 87%.
Arab defenses required 2.5 interceptors per incoming missile just to maintain an acceptable interceptor rate. Iranian drones cost approximately $20,000 each. The Patriot missiles intercepting them cost around $4 million per shot. Iran was draining Gulf defense budgets at a fraction of the cost it was absorbing and the United States had to begin emergency resupply operations to keep Gulf air defenses functional.
But above all of this sits the nuclear power question. By mid 2025, Iran had pushed uranium enrichment close to weaponsgrade levels, accumulating enough material for a rapid breakout. Tran has made it clear that full dismantlement is a red line it will not cross. That has effectively turned Iran into a threshold nuclear state and it changed the calculations around the 2026 conflict directly.
The United States and Israel pulled back from a full ground campaign giving Iran room to continue its proxy and attrition strategy across the region. Tan built and funded a network of armed proxy groups across the region. Hezbollah in Lebanon, various militia factions inside Iraq under what are known as the popular mobilization forces, and the Houthi movement in Yemen.
Through these groups, Iran gained the ability to project power far beyond its own borders, pressure rival governments, disrupt critical sea lanes, and strike at energy infrastructure, all while officially denying direct involvement. Jordan’s King Abdullah II has called this network “Shia Crescent,” a connected arc of Iranian influence stretching from Iran through Iraq and Syria all the way to Lebanon and Yemen.
For Gulf monarchies, this is the most frustrating part of the entire dynamic. Iran has built a position where it can strike and destabilize across the region while the cost of a full military response against it keeps rising. Its arsenal is dispersed underground and continuously replenished through domestic production. Gulf states are stuck reacting while Iran controls the pace.
Whether the US and Israel will be able to contain Iran, or if Iran even survives at all, is something only time can tell.”
