Iran Is Hitting Its Neighbours. Each Side Says the Other Started It.

Iran has fired more than a thousand missiles and drones at six Gulf countries since February 28. In Washington, these are unprovoked attacks on American allies. In Tehran, they're self-defence against an illegal war. In the Gulf capitals getting hit, both explanations sound hollow.

That three-way split — aggressor, defender, and trapped bystander — is the story the numbers don't capture.

What Washington Sees

The American framing is clean. Iran is attacking US allies. Full stop.

The New York Times described Gulf nations as facing a "nightmare scenario" after Iran "fired more than a thousand missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman." The strikes killed at least seven people across those countries.

President Trump dismissed the oil price spike — crude past $100 for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine — as "a small price to pay" for removing Iran's nuclear threat. The State Department ordered non-emergency staff to leave Saudi Arabia.

In this version of events, Iran is the aggressor. The Gulf states are victims. America is the protector. The war started because Iran's nuclear programme posed an existential threat.

What Tehran Sees

Iran tells a completely different story.

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's supreme national security council, laid out Tehran's position: "We do not intend to attack you. But when the bases of your country are used against us and the United States operates in the region with its own forces, we target them."

Al Jazeera's framing reflects this logic. Its reporting described the context upfront: "Gulf airspace has been shut and oil production and supply disrupted after Iran targeted US assets located in Gulf countries in retaliation for attacks by the United States and Israel."

That word — retaliation — does heavy lifting. In the Iranian framing, the US and Israel struck first. Iran's supreme leader was killed on February 28 in joint US-Israeli strikes. Everything since is response, not initiation. The Gulf states aren't victims of Iranian aggression — they're hosting the bases that launched the attack.

Iran's president even apologised to Gulf neighbours for the strikes, saying they'd stop unless attacks were launched from their territory. Hours later, Iran said it would continue hitting sites "at the disposal of the enemy."

The apology and its reversal tell you everything about the internal split. Iran's civilian government wants diplomatic cover. Its Revolutionary Guards want military results.

What the Gulf States See

Here's where it gets uncomfortable for everyone.

The Gulf states are furious — and not just at Iran.

Qatar's Prime Minister described the attacks as "a big sense of betrayal." He told Sky News that Gulf countries were hit "just maybe an hour after the start of the war," despite giving undertakings they wouldn't participate in any attack on Iran. Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas production entirely.

Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, put it bluntly: "This cannot go unanswered; a price has to be paid for this attack on our people."

But the anger runs both ways. A Saudi official complained to Al Jazeera: "The United States abandoned the Gulf states and redirected its air defence to protect Israel. They left all the Gulf states that host American military bases at the mercy of Iranian strikes."

The Hindu reported the same tension from a different angle: "The Trump administration is confronting mounting discontent from allies in the Persian Gulf who have complained they were not given adequate time to prepare for the torrent of Iranian drones and missiles."

The UAE reported 174 ballistic missiles launched at its territory — 161 intercepted, 13 fell in the sea. It also counted 689 drones, of which 645 were intercepted. Three people died. Sixty-eight were injured. The financial cost of interceptions alone: close to $2 billion, according to the Stimson Center's Kelly Grieco.

UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed went on television — a rare move — to declare the Emirates were in "a period of war."

The Perception Gap: 7.78

The Albis Perception Gap Index scored this story at 7.78 out of 10 — Competing Realities.

The widest gap: US vs. Middle East at 9.1. The US frames Iran as an aggressor attacking allies. Middle Eastern coverage frames Iran as retaliating against an illegal war launched from those allies' soil.

The dimensional breakdown tells the story:

• Factual divergence: 5.0 — Both sides agree missiles hit Gulf states. They disagree on what started it.
• Causal attribution: 7.5 — Was this retaliation or aggression? The answer depends entirely on where you're reading.
• Actor portrayal: 8.5 — Iran is either a reckless attacker or a nation defending itself. The Gulf states are either innocent bystanders or complicit hosts.
• Emotional tone: 8.0 — US coverage emphasises strategic threat. Middle Eastern coverage emphasises civilian suffering and betrayal.

Asia-Pacific coverage, represented by outlets like the South China Morning Post, takes a cooler observational tone — reporting the contradictions without choosing sides, but framing the war as one the US started.

The Third Story Nobody's Telling

The most interesting framing comes from the Gulf states themselves. They don't fit into either narrative.

They're not America's grateful allies. They lobbied against this war. They warned it would bring missiles to their cities. They were right.

They're not Iran's friends either. Iran's years of diplomatic groundwork — trying to convince the Gulf that Israel, not Iran, was the real threat — collapsed in days once missiles started hitting Dubai hotels and Bahrain refineries.

Yasmine Fariouk of the International Crisis Group captured it: "The Gulf countries now are at a point where there's a lot of anger at Iran. Many of them have invested a lot in the detente with Iran and in mediating and trying to find solutions only to find that Iran still sees them as a platform for its bigger war with the US and with Israel."

Qatar's former prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim, warned that Iran had "sowed doubts that will be hard to erase" in its future relations with GCC states.

The Gulf states are trapped. Join the fight against Iran, and they side with Israel in a war their publics oppose. Stay neutral, and Iranian missiles keep falling on their cities. Blame America, and they risk the security guarantees they've spent decades building.

Three regions. Three completely different wars. Same missiles.

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This story was scored by the Albis Perception Gap Index — measuring how differently the world frames the same events. See today's most divided stories →