In the early evening of Monday, 23 June 2025, Iran launched a salvo of missiles targeting the US airbase of Al-Udeid in Qatar. The attack constituted an unusual development in what had already been an unusual showdown of force between two regional powers that share no land or sea borders. The strike was so extraordinary because it targeted a US military base on the territory of a sovereign state that was not in any way involved in the conflict. Moreover, most of the 10,000 troops stationed there seem to have been evacuated prior to the attack, a move that enabled Iran to claim that it had responded by attacking the US, without the US paying any cost that would require it to retaliate. The fact that President Trump then came out thanking Iran for informing the US military of the exact schedule of the attack further added to the bizarreness of this episode.
The only side that was not amused by such an odd scenario was Qatar and its people. The scenes of aerial defences intercepting the Iranian missiles before they reached their target not only shattered the sense of peace and safety enjoyed by Doha and other Qatari towns, but also reopened the old debate on the presence of foreign, especially US, military bases. Across the Gulf region, similar discussions also surfaced, both online and in private.
For any patriotic citizen of Qatar or any other Gulf country, the question arose over whether hosting US military bases was worth it. Had Qatar not been hosting a US base, it would not have been attacked by Iran, especially as Iran vehemently insisted that it was targeting neither Qatar nor its people but simply responding to the US attack on its nuclear installations. On one side of the debate, the issues and the answers are clear: a foreign presence on Qatari or other GCC soil seems to attract more threat than it does security, all the while raising questions about the compatibility of state sovereignty with the presence of foreign military forces, irrespective of the mutual agreement on which this military presence is based.
Another camp, despite unenthusiastic about maintaining any form of foreign presence on GCC territories, acknowledges that it may be a necessary evil. Proponents of the “necessary evil” argument claim that even when the GCC region was threatened by the new Islamic regime in Iran, which vowed to export its revolution to its neighbours, or when the war raged on between Iraq and Iran across their borders and the Gulf waters, there was no need for military bases in the region. Back then, US and other western navies patrolled the waters in the region to maintain peace and security, and more importantly, the stability of energy flows and international trade. Military bases, however, became a necessity when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and threatened to march on Saudi Arabia and other smaller Gulf nations. When Saddam Hussein fought back against the international coalition in 1991, he launched 39 Scud missiles on Israel. Ironically, he launched many more Scuds on Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar than he did on Israel in the hope of hitting the US and other international troops that were gathered there to support the war effort. But Saddam Hussein did not attack Qatar, Bahrain, or Saudi Arabia simply because they had US troops on their territories; the troops were there in the first place because Saddam Hussein had been threatening to invade those countries. The same argument can be made by several GCC countries with respect to the Iranian threats against these countries over the past three decades.
Even Qatar, which, in contrast to its GCC counterparts, has historically maintained a relaxed and cordial relationship with Iran, is fully aware of how volatile security in the region can be, and that the biggest and most unexpected threats do not necessarily come from an outsider such as Iran. In 2017, Qatar was suddenly placed under air, land and sea embargo by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, and Egypt, while Saudi officials quickly started flaunting the possibility of invading Qatar. It will remain a mystery whether this invasion never materialized because of the 10,000 US troops stationed at al-Udeid Airbase, but few Qataris doubt that the threat was real.
Despite the complexities of this issue, it is likely that the ruckus over the presence of US and other military bases in the Gulf will soon fall silent and eventually be forgotten. Many Qataris and other GCC citizens will still get upset whenever they think patriotically about the presence of foreign troops in their countries, but they may also decide that in a region characterized by volatility, uncertainty and high security risks, it is better to be a little upset than very sorry. Still, others may continue to raise questions about the value of hosting such an expansive military base that did not protect Qatar from the embargo nor the accompanying threats in 2017, one that opened Qatar up to the Iranian missile attacks on 23 June, and did not prevent the Israeli strike on 9 September of the same year.
References
DePetris, Daniel R. “How Trump took advantage of Iran’s face-saving retaliation strategy.”
MSNBC. 24/6/2025. Accessed on:
https://acr.ps/1L9GPPj
“Iraq’s missile attacks against Israel and the Gulf states.”
Human Rights Watch. 1991. Accessed on:
https://acr.ps/1L9GP28
Jakes, Lara, Yan Zhuang & Eric Schmitt. “What to know about Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.”
The New York Times. 23/6/2025. Accessed on
https://acr.ps/1L9GQ2z
