Tehran believes the United Arab Emirates is playing an active role in the US-Israeli war on Iran and any ground invasion could lead to widespread attacks on Emirati state assets, two senior Iranian sources told Middle East Eye. A month into the conflict, which has battered global markets, Donald Trump is weighing whether to use ground troops to seize strategic islands in the Strait of Hormuz in an attempt to stop Iran from disrupting energy supplies.
Attention has particularly focused on Kharg Island, the hub through which roughly 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports flow, and Qashm Island which overlooks the strait. Such an operation would probably be launched from US bases in Gulf Arab states, which have come under Iranian attack in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes on Iran, which have killed at least 1,900 people so far.
Anti-Iranian sentiment has grown in Arab Gulf states, where retaliatory strikes have hit various targets, including key energy infrastructure. Combative rhetoric has particularly come from the close Israeli ally the UAE, whose ambassador to the US wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal this week saying a ceasefire would not be “enough” and the belligerents should push for a “conclusive outcome” that “addresses Iran’s full range of threats”.
The WSJ even reported that some Gulf Arab states were considering joining the US-Israeli attacks on Iran. However, according to a senior Iranian security official, leaders in Tehran now believe the UAE has played an active role in the war from the very beginning.
According to the official, the Iranian leadership has “decided to end a weeks-long period of tolerance towards Abu Dhabi, after concluding that the Emirati role went beyond simply hosting US military facilities already hit in Iranian retaliatory attacks”.
The official said: “Iranian intelligence believes the UAE also made some of its own air facilities available for operations against Iran.”
Abu Dhabi has served as an advanced platform for Israeli interests in the region, the official said. He suggested this included “deception operations” - false-flag Israeli attacks on Oman and at least one other country intended to look like Iranian ones.
He said Tehran assesses that “part of that cooperation has also involved the use of advanced AI infrastructure inside the UAE to support data collection and analysis for US and Israeli targeting, including information on Iranian figures and sites”.
The official added that attacks on Iranian vessels, small boats and coastal areas launched from UAE territory would now be considered by Tehran as a major escalation requiring a “strong response”.
A separate senior Iranian diplomatic official told MEE that Tehran believes a US ground offensive may now be imminent. He said intelligence assessments - supported by information from Iran’s allied states, including Russia - increasingly point to a scenario in which an assault could be launched from the UAE.
Last week, Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s power plants if it did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which 30 percent of the world’s oil passed before the war. However, he has since twice delayed the promised attack, citing negotiations with Iran on a settlement that would end the bombing and allow oil to flow freely again.
The diplomat said Iran sees the current delay not as a genuine diplomatic pause, but as cover for the deployment of additional troops and preparations for a new phase of the war.
Reuters reported this week that the US is expected to send thousands more personnel to the Middle East, adding to the large American military presence already in the region. When the US and Israel on March 18 bombed South Pars gas field, one of the most important parts of Iranian infrastructure, Tehran responded by targeting energy facilities across the Gulf states.
Missiles and drones have also hit hotels, airports, data centers, ports and embassies in the region as the war has escalated. Yet the diplomat said Iran has so far deliberately avoided treating countries from which attacks were launched as fully enemy states.
For that reason, the diplomat said, Tehran confined itself to striking what it viewed as direct US military targets, or intelligence sites linked to the US and Israel, including some located inside civilian areas in countries such as the UAE and Bahrain.
That restraint, the diplomat warned, “would end immediately if any ground invasion takes place or if any part of Iranian territory or any of its islands becomes a target of a ground invasion”. Any country from which such an attack is launched would immediately be treated by Iran as an enemy, he said.
“Iranian strikes would no longer be limited to military or intelligence facilities but all state institutions and state-linked interests would become potential targets, including commercial and property assets in which the Emirati state holds investment stakes,” he said. “The previous rules will not hold if there is an invasion,” the diplomat added. “If any state participates in the occupation of even a single piece of Iranian land, that state will be dealt with as an aggressor.” This message, he said, has already been conveyed to the Emiratis.
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