Iran Escalates Its Attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait

Ever since the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have found themselves on the front line of a war they neither wanted nor started. As the ongoing U.S. and Iranian escalations demonstrate, neither the April 8 cease-fire nor the subsequent memorandum of understanding succeeded in stabilizing the region. But while Iran’s targeting of the Gulf states has not ended since the putative cease-fire, it has evolved. Tehran has pivoted from disproportionately attacking the United Arab Emirates to focus instead on two smaller states: Bahrain and Kuwait.

The commonality is that both before and after the cease-fire, Iran saw the Gulf as Washington’s regional center of gravity. But the intended strategic effect of Iran’s attacks changed: from inflicting maximum damage to the global economy and forcing a cease-fire to signaling resolve without provoking a return to hostilities. This was why Iran doubled down in targeting Bahrain and Kuwait. Yet this was not inevitable. Instead, inter-Gulf fragmentation and Washington’s strategic incoherency created the permissive conditions for Iran’s selective coercion. It was the lack of either a U.S. or Gulf response to these repeated strikes that set the stage for the current escalations between Washington and Tehran.

Ever since the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have found themselves on the front line of a war they neither wanted nor started. As the ongoing U.S. and Iranian escalations demonstrate, neither the April 8 cease-fire nor the subsequent memorandum of understanding succeeded in stabilizing the region. But while Iran’s targeting of the Gulf states has not ended since the putative cease-fire, it has evolved. Tehran has pivoted from disproportionately attacking the United Arab Emirates to focus instead on two smaller states: Bahrain and Kuwait.

The commonality is that both before and after the cease-fire, Iran saw the Gulf as Washington’s regional center of gravity. But the intended strategic effect of Iran’s attacks changed: from inflicting maximum damage to the global economy and forcing a cease-fire to signaling resolve without provoking a return to hostilities. This was why Iran doubled down in targeting Bahrain and Kuwait. Yet this was not inevitable. Instead, inter-Gulf fragmentation and Washington’s strategic incoherency created the permissive conditions for Iran’s selective coercion. It was the lack of either a U.S. or Gulf response to these repeated strikes that set the stage for the current escalations between Washington and Tehran.

Bahrain and Kuwait share similar predicaments. Both are reliant on the Strait of Hormuz for commerce. They are also geographically and demographically small and sandwiched between larger, competing neighbors. This makes them vulnerable to becoming frontiers of conflict and even victims of conquest, as Kuwait found out in 1990. They also both host substantial Shiite populations. This has heightened concerns over Iran trying to fan the flames of sectarian polarization to cause domestic instability, which the Bahraini government alleged was a key precipitant of the unrest there in 2011. Lastly, they have not achieved the same degree of international influence as some of their GCC peers. They lack the economic weight of Saudi Arabia, the global profile of the UAE, or the diplomatic influence and access enjoyed by Qatar.

Yet neither Gulf state can be accused of lacking a coherent strategy to counter these disadvantages. Instead, each represents the opposite end of a Gulf spectrum. Bahrain has consistently stood out for its hawkish line on Iran; it joined the Abraham Accords in 2020 and was the only prewar Gulf state without an embassy in Tehran. Kuwait has conversely prioritized engagement and sought to pragmatically develop political and economic ties with Iran. Previously, its now-dissolved parliament passed laws that criminalized even indirect engagement with Israelis. In December 2023, Bahrain was the only Arab state to publicly join Operation Prosperity Guardian, a Western-led initiative to counter Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. By contrast, Kuwait adopted a more cautious posture and even temporarily closed its airspace to the United States after the Trump administration launched its abortive operation to open the Strait of Hormuz—Project Freedom—this May.

Neither of these divergent approaches kept Bahrain or Kuwait safe before the cease-fire. But their relatively peripheral position in the regional pecking order afforded them limited respite. Iran targeted the Gulf states because it sought to create sufficient global economic chaos to force a cease-fire. This was why none of the diverse strategies the Gulf states used to contain Iran succeeded. This also explains why nearly half of the more than 7,000 missiles and drones that Iran fired at the Gulf between February and June targeted one state alone: the UAE, the region’s most connected commercial hub.

After the cease-fire, Iran has kept striking the Gulf while showing little appetite for a full-blown return to war. It is instead using force to demonstrate that it remains unbowed, thereby strengthening its hand in the ongoing talks and projecting deterrence further down the line. It is using violence to disincentivize more violence. It thus needs to cause some, but not too much, disruption. This is why the same characteristics that earlier stopped Bahrain and Kuwait from being Iran’s primary target have now placed them in Tehran’s crosshairs. Compared with their more influential Gulf neighbors, Bahrain and Kuwait occupy a dangerous middle ground: sufficiently important for attacks on them to carry strategic signaling value yet insufficiently central to guarantee overwhelming U.S. retaliation.

It is no surprise that neither Bahrain nor Kuwait can deter Iran on its own given their small size and limited geopolitical weight. The failure is instead more systemic. The fundamental organizing principle and strategic logic of the GCC, and the region’s close political and military ties to the United States, mean they should not have to do so alone. In both cases, collective security should prevent Iran from having free rein to pick and choose its regional targets.

But Iran’s continuing strikes are forcing a reassessment of assumptions long embedded in the Gulf’s security order, many of which were already being tested during the conflict. Both Bahrain and Kuwait are major U.S. non-NATO allies. In 2023, Bahrain and the United States signed the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement, akin to a bespoke mutual defense pact. Nevertheless, Iran repeatedly attacked both Gulf states from the day after the cease-fire came into effect until early July with no U.S. response beside rhetorical condemnation. This inaction will have done little to assuage regional and indeed global fears that the Trump administration is all too willing to abandon its allies.

After the United States belatedly retaliated in mid-July, Iran intensified its attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain while also striking Qatar, Oman, and Jordan. This is the same strategy of selective coercion, only one rung higher on the escalation ladder. Tehran is once again setting the pace and scope of the conflict, by attacking states that matter to Washington but not enough to make a decisive U.S. response inevitable. This suggests that Iran still does not want a return to open conflict and is instead continuing to use force to strengthen its hand at the negotiating table. It also traps the United States in the same dilemma it has faced for months with Iranian attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait: Either Washington refrains from responding, which damages its credibility, or it escalates and risks plunging the region back into a war that no one wants.

Closer to home, the lack of a coherent GCC response is equally troubling. Before the cease-fire, Iran’s attacks on each and every Gulf state generated a popular feeling of solidarity and shared struggle. By contrast, there has recently been speculation that some Gulf states are pursuing their own ad hoc postwar deals with Iran and its allies. There is no evidence to vindicate this claim. Yet what is clear is that Iran has continued to target Bahrain and Kuwait. Both states are now struggling economically as a result of Iran’s attacks. The credit ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Bahrain’s outlook from “stable” to “negative” in April, while the same month saw Kuwait export zero barrels of oil for the first time since the 1990 Gulf War.

All these trends are worrying because what happens in Bahrain and Kuwait does not stay there. That Tehran has now expanded the conflict to strike Qatar and Oman for the first time in months, as well as attacking Emirati- and Saudi-flagged ships, proves that the GCC states are too geographically proximate to endure an indefinite paradigm of limited conflict on their doorsteps. This is why any strictly bilateral deal between Iran and a Gulf state would be akin to sticking a Band-Aid on a potentially mortal wound. Most concerningly of all, through its selective use of violence, Iran remains adept at exploiting gaps and practicing “divide and rule” within the Gulf. It will likely exploit any and all intra-GCC rivalries.

This is why the Gulf states are only as strong as their weakest link. As Bahrain’s and Kuwait’s similar imbroglios show, cultivating extensive ties to Iran and an anti-Israel posture is no magic bullet, nor is taking a more confrontational stance vis-à-vis Tehran and joining the Abraham Accords. When pursued at an individual level, both these strategies meet the same structural constraints. The best solution is a collective one. This will inevitably involve some compromises in grand strategies and in each individual Gulf state’s autonomy. Yet so long as Tehran can selectively target weaker states without provoking a collective and decisive political or kinetic response, every Gulf state remains vulnerable.