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Since the war began in 2026 Iran has fired missiles and drones at American bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and at oil facilities nearby. Iran says it is striking the United States where the United States strikes from. The states that host the bases say they are not at war with anyone and are being hit all the same.
The wider confrontation, its history and each side's full account: Iran in regional and international confrontation.
In the first days of September Iran struck American bases in the Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq after new US attacks, and on 9 September smoke rose over Saudi Aramco's installations. Talks between Iran and the Gulf states on security, hosted by Oman, were postponed.
Whether a country that lends its soil to one side of a war can stay out of it. The Gulf monarchies host tens of thousands of American troops as insurance against Iran. Iran says that a base used to bomb it is a lawful target and that hosts must choose. The hosts say they forbade the use of their territory for attacks, cannot expel the bases without losing their protection, and are paying for a war they tried to prevent.
American aircraft, ships and radars that attack Iran operate from these bases. Iran aims at the bases, not at its neighbours, and warned them first. Peoples of the region should no longer serve as a shield for foreign forces; if the bases leave, the strikes end. Iran has offered the Gulf states a security arrangement of their own, without outsiders.
They restored relations with Tehran, told Washington their territory was not to be used against Iran, and mediated for peace. Iranian missiles have nonetheless hit their refineries, an airport and their cities' skies, and killed their residents. They will not be told by Iran whom they may host, and they will not join America's war either.
Iran is attacking American forces and the world's energy supply because it cannot reach the United States itself. The bases are there at the hosts' request. Every strike proves why they are needed.
Tehran's leaves out the refineries, the airport and the civilians its missiles have hit, none of them American; and that even its ally Hamas asked it to stop.
The Gulf states' leaves out that the bases on their soil are part of the machine that is bombing Iran, whatever rules they set for their use.
Washington's leaves out that it began the war from these bases against its hosts' advice, and that its own air defences have not kept them safe.
Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.
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