Nine countries struck. Twelve national entities under fire. Every GCC member hit. Three international airports shut. The largest simultaneous multi-state attack by a single nation in the 21st century, conducted by a government that insists it is not attacking anyone except America.
https://x.com/shanaka86/status/2028250129107702038
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Iran had attacked sites in at least nine countries within 36 hours of the first US-Israeli strikes.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Doha noted on Saturday that “the only country in the Gulf Cooperation Council that Iran has not struck today thus far is Oman.”
By Sunday, Oman’s state news agency confirmed that two drones had hit the commercial port of Duqm, injuring one person. That completed the set. Iran struck every single member of the Gulf Cooperation Council in less than two days.
The confirmed list: Israel. The United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia. Qatar. Bahrain. Kuwait. Jordan. Iraq. Oman. Nine sovereign nations hit by direct Iranian missile or drone strikes in 36 hours.
Add the military forces of the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, all of which had bases or personnel struck in territory belonging to other countries on that list, and the number reaches twelve distinct national entities under fire from a single state.
There is no precedent for this in the modern era. When Saddam Hussein launched Scud missiles during the Gulf War in 1991, he hit two countries: Saudi Arabia and Israel. Iran, in a single weekend, fired missiles at three international airports (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait), hit the Fairmont Hotel on Palm Jumeirah, set fire to Jebel Ali Port, struck a French military base in Abu Dhabi, fired missiles toward British bases in Cyprus, hit the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, targeted the US consulate compound in Erbil, and landed drones on a commercial port in Oman, a country that was actively mediating between Washington and Tehran when the strike arrived.
And here is the sentence that reveals the architecture of the escalation. Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s National Security Council, stated on Iranian state media: US military facilities “are not the territory of the countries of the region, they are the territory of the United States. We do not intend to attack the countries of the region.” That is Iran’s legal fiction. The IRGC is claiming that when it fires a ballistic missile at a US base in Qatar and the debris injures 16 Qatari civilians, it has not attacked Qatar. When a drone hits an apartment building in Manama, it has not attacked Bahrain. When the Fairmont Hotel on Palm Jumeirah catches fire from a strike, it has not attacked the UAE. The targets are American. The explosions are local. The casualties are everyone else’s.
This distinction will not survive the week. Saudi Arabia has described the attacks as “blatant and cowardly.” Qatar’s Foreign Ministry reserved its “full right” to defend itself. Kuwait called the strikes “a flagrant violation of international law.” These are not diplomatic notes. These are the public precursors to countries that spent decades avoiding conflict being pulled into one by a legal theory that says bombing their territory does not count as bombing their territory.
Nine countries struck. Twelve national entities under fire. Every GCC member hit. Three international airports shut. The largest simultaneous multi-state attack by a single nation in the 21st century, conducted by a government that insists it is not attacking anyone except America.
The region did not escalate into war. The war arrived at every address in the region simultaneously. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans
posted by Satish Sharma at
05:22
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