Iran has unleashed a relentless barrage of missiles and drones across the Persian Gulf, targeting nearly every major Arab state in what analysts are already calling one of the most destabilizing military campaigns the region has seen in decades. The strikes have hit airports, oil fields, American military bases, and commercial vessels — and they show no sign of stopping.
The scale of it is difficult to overstate. Since early March 2026, Tehran has launched at least 35 waves of missile and drone attacks against Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman, according to multiple tracking organizations monitoring the conflict in real time. The UAE has absorbed the highest number of strikes, followed closely by Kuwait and Bahrain. It’s a coordinated, sustained assault — not a warning shot.
A War on All Fronts
Iran’s stated goal, at least publicly, has been retaliation. Following documented U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian ballistic missile infrastructure — including the Imam Ali Missile Base and several other launch facilities — Tehran responded by targeting American military installations across six Arab countries simultaneously. The message was blunt: nowhere in the Gulf is off-limits.
Energy infrastructure has taken a particular beating. Iran has repeatedly struck oil fields and power facilities throughout the Gulf, rattling global markets and raising urgent questions about long-term supply stability. At the same time, Iranian forces have moved aggressively in the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow chokepoint through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply passes — deploying mine-laying vessels in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to strangle maritime traffic.
The U.S. Navy hasn’t been passive. American forces destroyed at least 17 Iranian warships as part of efforts to keep the strait open, and separately took out 16 mine-laying vessels in a single engagement near the chokepoint. Still, Iran has threatened to shut down Persian Gulf shipping lanes entirely — a threat that, if carried out, would send shockwaves through the global economy almost instantly.
Wave After Wave
How bad is it, really? Consider this: Iran itself has been keeping count. “Iran said it has launched its 35th wave of operations, as it continues its strikes across the region including in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait,” as noted in recent coverage of the ongoing campaign. Thirty-five waves. That’s not an escalation — that’s a campaign with a rhythm, a cadence, and apparently a long runway ahead.
Qatar, meanwhile, intercepted 17 Iranian ballistic missiles in a single day, according to CBS News, which also reported on Iran’s renewed threats against Gulf shipping lanes. The interceptions suggest Gulf air defenses are holding — for now — but the sheer volume of incoming fire is testing systems that were never designed to absorb this kind of sustained load.
Israel and the United States have not been sitting on their hands. The two allies have jointly dropped over 2,000 bombs on hundreds of Iranian targets since the conflict intensified, hitting missile production sites, launch infrastructure, and military command nodes deep inside Iran, according to reporting on the strikes. Whether that’s degrading Iran’s capacity in any meaningful way remains the central military question of the moment.
Entering a Third Phase
That’s the catch. Even as U.S. and Israeli strikes chip away at Iran’s missile inventory and infrastructure, analysts at the Foreign Policy Research Institute suggest the conflict may be entering what they’re calling a “third phase” — one in which Iranian missile strikes against Gulf states are expected to gradually decline, not because Tehran is backing down, but because the campaign is evolving. What comes next in that evolution is, at best, unclear.
The breadth of the strikes — spanning six countries, multiple domains, and dozens of target categories — reflects an Iranian strategy that appears designed to overwhelm response capacity rather than achieve any single, decisive blow. It’s attrition dressed up as escalation. And it’s working, at least in the sense that the Gulf states and their American partners are being forced to fight everywhere at once.
The experts who’ve been tracking this conflict since its opening hours are using a term that carries enormous historical weight: the Third Gulf War. That framing alone tells you something about how seriously the strategic community is taking what’s unfolding. The first two Gulf Wars reshaped the Middle East for a generation each. Nobody’s ready to predict what the third one leaves behind.
The missiles are still flying. The mines are still being laid. And somewhere in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important waterway is narrowing — not just physically, but politically — with every passing hour.
