United Arab Emirates

Despite repeated public pledges to retaliate against any attack on Iran, the Houthis have refrained from launching missiles or conducting Red Sea attacks during the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict. This restraint coincides with a sustained, underreported nationwide military mobilization across Houthi-controlled territory, framed as 'Al-Aqsa Flood' training programs cycling government, civilian, and tribal structures through military training. The movement has lost significant senior military and political leadership to Israeli precision strikes, seen its Iranian supply chain disrupted, and faces degraded missile stockpiles with unreplaceable guidance components. Simultaneously, the Houthis are exploiting the fracturing of the Saudi-UAE coalition in southern Yemen and maintaining coercive economic leverage through the implicit threat of resumed Red Sea operations. The group appears to be repositioning from a proxy missile force serving Iranian strategic interests toward an autonomous territorial actor preparing for land-based expansion in Yemen.

Iran launched approximately 1,400 ballistic missiles and drones at the UAE alone, with hundreds more targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, hitting U.S. military bases, critical oil infrastructure, civilian airports, and residential areas. The strikes invalidated the Gulf states' multi-year rapprochement strategy, which had culminated in restored diplomatic relations with Iran in 2022-2023. Iran's stated strategic rationale was to coerce Gulf states into pressuring Washington and Tel Aviv to halt military operations, leveraging the threat of sustained economic damage. Iranian President Pezeshkian issued an apology, but senior IRGC and parliamentary officials contradicted it, signaling internal incoherence or deliberate ambiguity. The UAE is now weighing freezing billions in Iranian assets held in Dubai, threatening to sever Tehran's primary sanctions-evasion financial corridor.

The RSF accepted a humanitarian truce brokered by the U.S.-led Quad — comprising the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — following mass atrocities in El Fasher, including an attack on a maternity hospital that killed over 460 people. The ceasefire collapsed within 24 hours as RSF forces conducted drone strikes on a military base and power station in Khartoum. The breakdown exposes the structural contradiction of the UAE — a documented RSF financier and weapons supplier — serving simultaneously as a Quad mediator. El Fasher's fall would eliminate the last SAF stronghold in Darfur, representing a decisive territorial shift in RSF favor. The episode illustrates how mediation architecture can be captured by a conflict party to shield it from accountability while providing diplomatic cover.