As Iran has lashed out at the region amid joint U. S.-Israeli strikes this month, no Gulf state has come under more fire than the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The semiconstitutional monarchy, situated at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula, has intercepted the majority of Iranian drones and missiles, but some have squeezed through, hitting residential buildings and inflicting damage on an oil port and Dubai’s airport.
The UAE has become a regional economic power, forging closer ties with the U. S. and Israel and hosting a substantial U. S. base, Al Dhafra Air Base, located near Abu Dhabi, the nation’s capital. That and its geographic proximity to Iran make it a prominent target for Tehran’s attacks, according to analysts.
“By hitting the UAE, it is seeking to undermine the role it is playing in linking the wider region with outside actors and to cause wider ripple effects in the global economy in terms of trade and investment, in addition to the ongoing efforts to impose costs in the global energy markets,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
Katulis added that some within the Iranian regime look at the UAE with a “strong degree” of jealousy and envy, particularly when it comes to its economic standing.
“In the wider narrative and worldview battles that shape today’s Middle East, the contrasts between Iran and the UAE are stark,” he told The Hill.
Brian Carter, a fellow with the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), said the UAE is economically “fragile” and its most populous and well-known city, Dubai, can be a damage multiplier when attacked.
“Dubai, in particular, has a very outsized international flair to it and there’s a large international presence that can create outsized political effects when you’re attacking the UAE,” Carter said in an interview with The Hill on Monday.
Marwa Maziad, a visiting lecturer of Israeli studies at the University of Maryland, said Iran views the UAE as the Gulf state “most strategically aligned” with Israel, with the cooperation creating a “perception of involvement” even with the UAE not launching strikes itself.
“In Iran’s view, Gulf states were expected either to succeed in dissuading Trump from joining Israel’s war or risk being treated as part of the coalition,” Maziad recently told The Hill. “In that case, their territory becomes part of the battlefield.”
The UAE, which has prepared for decades for similar attacks, has several ground-based air defense systems from a variety of nations at its disposal, along with fighter jets. The systems, which include U. S.-produced Terminal High Altitude Area Defense and Patriot missile defense systems, were made to intercept ballistic missiles. Patriot systems tackle lower-altitude threats, while THAAD deals with high-altitude, long-range threats.
All of the systems have been put to the test since the war broke out on Feb. 28, with Iran firing barrages of drones and missiles toward the UAE.
On Monday, the UAE’s air defense systems engaged with 16 drones and seven ballistic missiles launched from Iran, according to the country’s Ministry of Defense.
On Sunday, Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE’s president, said the persistent Iranian attacks are forcing the Gulf state to rethink its security and could lead to strengthening ties with the U. S.
“This is the cost of Iran’s misguided calculations,” Gargash said on the social platform X.
The UAE has begun to crack down on Iranian-owned assets as it mulls joining the U. S. and Israel in its war. The monarchy shut down an Iranian Club and an Iranian Hospital in Dubai, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday night.
The war has also highlighted some of the risks of aligning with the U. S., as well as the limits of America’s security umbrella in the region.
Since the conflict started, UAE air defenses have engaged with 1,789 drones, 352 ballistic missiles and 15 cruise missiles, according to the UAE Ministry of Defense. The aerial attacks have led to the deaths of two UAE members of the armed forces, along with the deaths of six other individuals. More than 161 people have been injured.
Maziad said the UAE’s air defense systems have performed very effectively by historical standards but noted that the challenge for Abu Dhabi is “sustainability.” Tehran largely relies on cheap drones and missiles, while the interceptors used to shoot them down are more expensive.
“If the war ends soon, this performance will likely be recorded as a success,” Maziad said. “But if the conflict drags on, the cost and attrition dynamic could become a serious strategic problem.”
As Iran has continued to hammer the UAE, the country’s reporting on Tehran’s strikes has grown more opaque. Early on in the war, the UAE disclosed how many missiles and drones its air defense systems intercepted, but recently, the monarchy switched to noting only how many targets its systems have “engaged.”
Carter, of AEI, said there is a combination of factors at play, including operational security concerns. When it comes to ballistic missiles specifically, revealing how many missiles hit the sea versus how many hit Emirati territory would give Iranians a good sense of how many interceptors Abu Dhabi has used up, he said.
“Because if you’re defending airspace, you can tell a ballistic missile is going to hit in the water, you don’t need to intercept it. So if you’re telling the Iranians X number of your missiles hit the water, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to sit down and say, like, ‘OK, this many missiles hit UAE territory. This is the amount they’re saying they’ve intercepted,’” Carter said in an interview.
Maziad said the UAE’s use of the term “engaged” instead of “intercepted” introduces deliberate ambiguity, helping prevent analysts from being able to estimate how many air defense interceptors are being expended, which could reveal the depletion rate of the UAE’s interceptor inventory.
“At the same time, limiting the circulation of images of debris or damage serves both operational security and narrative management—preventing visuals of smoke and impact from shaping global perceptions of Dubai as a vulnerable target,” Maziad said.
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