Iran spreads missile and drone fire across Gulf to pressure U.S. into diplomatic off-ramp

DUBAI — Iran has unleashed thousands of drones and ballistic missiles against Israel, American military installations, and energy facilities across the Persian Gulf since the United States and Israel launched military operations Saturday and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Associated Press reported. Iranian fire has reached targets as distant as the country’s borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan, and has struck Gulf states that maintain close ties to both Washington and Tehran.

Analysts say Iran is attempting to exhaust the U.S. coalition and force a diplomatic settlement, but the broad barrage — striking neutral mediators and close American partners alike — appears to be pushing Gulf states into closer alignment with Washington rather than compelling it to stand down.

Iran’s theory of pressure

Iran’s leaders believe that by inflicting casualties and disrupting energy production to drive up oil and gas prices, America’s allies or an unsettled U.S. public will pressure President Donald Trump to seek a negotiated end to the campaign, according to the AP.

“Iran is upping the costs for this U.S. military campaign and regionalizing it from the get-go, as they promised they would if America restarts the war again with Iran,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Geranmayeh said Iran is counting on Trump’s coalition losing its resolve before Iran does.

“The Iranians are banking on basically out-stomaching him, and exhausting him and his allies to the point where they would basically have a diplomatic off-ramp,” she said. Trump is unpredictable, she said, but for now appears to be pressing for “unconditional surrender to his demands, rather than a negotiated settlement.”

The current conflict follows a 12-day U.S.-Israeli war last June that targeted Iranian nuclear enrichment sites. Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, though its officials had threatened to pursue a weapon while enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade levels.

The toll

The U.S. and Israel have carried out hundreds of airstrikes, killing 1,045 people in Iran, the AP reported. Despite being greatly outgunned, Iran has continued to fire ballistic missiles into Israel, killing 11 people and disrupting life for millions of Israelis. Additional deaths have been reported in Gulf Arab states.

Trump said Monday his four objectives were to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, wipe out its navy, prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and ensure that it cannot continue to support allied armed groups.

After more than two years of war in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli public appears to have little appetite for another lengthy round of fighting. Polls suggest the U.S. public is also leery of a protracted conflict.

The missile equation

Both sides face finite stockpiles, the AP reported. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that thousands of Iranian missiles and drones have been “intercepted and vaporized.” The Israeli military said it has destroyed dozens of missile launchers and has observed far fewer Iranian launches in recent days — though warning sirens continued to sound across Israel into Thursday.

A senior Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said Iran has several days’ worth of ballistic missiles if it continues firing at current rates, but may hold some back to wage a longer campaign.

U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, head of Central Command, described the American approach directly: “In simple terms, we are focused on shooting all the things that can shoot at us.”

A strategy backfiring

Iran’s fire has spared virtually no one in the region. Oman, which mediated the latest round of nuclear talks and has maintained close ties with Tehran for decades, has seen its port at Duqm — which helped the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier with pre-deployment logistics — targeted by Iranian missiles, along with ships off its coast.

Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery has been repeatedly attacked, and the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh was hit by drones, an outcome that complicated Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s effort to cultivate a close relationship with Trump. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which also maintain close ties to Trump, have been repeatedly targeted as well.

Hasan Alhasan, a Middle East expert with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the broad campaign is “backfiring.”

“It’s driving and pushing the Gulf states into closer alignment with the United States,” he said. Gulf states cannot “simply sit idle and continue absorbing indefinite attacks to their critical infrastructure and to civilians in Gulf cities,” Alhasan said, and are likely both acquiring more interceptor weapons and seeking ways to broker an end to the conflict.

Iran’s command-and-control claim

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi suggested Sunday that Iranian military units are now operating independently of any central government control, attributing the broad pattern of strikes to standing instructions given in advance.

“They are acting based on instructions — you know, general instructions — given to them in advance,” Araghchi told Al Jazeera.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, “categorically rejected” that framing after a Wednesday phone call with Araghchi, rejecting Araghchi’s assertion that Iranian missiles were directed only at American interests and not intended to target Qatar.