Ellen Clarke
Since the US and Israel began their air campaign against Iran, the Islamic Republic has launched wide-ranging drone and missile attacks against all six GCC states. The damage inflicted is intended to put pressure on them, spread the cost of the war and expose the limits of US capabilities and will. Iran’s decision to strike its neighbours will reshape how they define their security and defence priorities.
While only a few of the more than 4,000 Iranian projectiles launched against the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have hit their intended targets as of 19 March 2026, they have sent shockwaves across global energy, industrial and financial markets. Iran had already targeted energy infrastructure in 2019 and the United States’ military sites in the Gulf in 2025, but its current response is qualitatively and quantitatively different and has firmly crossed red lines that the GCC had hoped would be safeguarded by their diplomacy and ostensible neutrality. Iran has systemically targeted military, energy and other economic sites as part of a strategy of asymmetric warfare that has left no country unaffected. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait have been disproportionately attacked, while Oman and Qatar, Iran’s traditional interlocutors, have also suffered material damage.
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