The region was prepared for an escalation when US President Donald Trump began his Israeli-Iran conflict late on Saturday night.
Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Esfahan were hit by US-lead 17 massive ordnance penetrators and two dozen cruise missiles, aiding Israel, which had already been conducting missile trade with Tehran since July 13.
Iran responded quickly. 14 missiles were launched at Al Udeid in Qatar, a neutral nation, at the US Air Force’s Central Command in the Middle East on Monday evening. The capital, Doha, was sputtering with fear as those missiles flew over.
However, the attack pretended to signal a truce that Trump announced hours later, and which was facilitated by sophisticated diplomacy between Qatar, the US, and Iran, rather than the “rathole of retaliations” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had warned against.
How did a ceasefire emerge from an attack’s smoke, then?
What choices did Iran have?
Given that the US has a presence in Iran’s neighborhood, it seemed obvious to use a military strategy.
Its Bahraini headquarters is located in addition to Al Udeid Airbase. Iran’s border with the Persian Gulf is only 200 kilometers (125 miles) long. Additionally, Oman has four logistics air bases and an air base in Kuwait. The US has three air bases in Saudi Arabia, three in Iraq, and three air bases in Jordan further afield.
According to Dorsa Jabbari of Al Jazeera, “The US has 40, 000 troops in the region [on] 19 US bases, eight of which are permanent, and Iran has previously stated that it will target Iran as legitimately if the US strikes Iran.”
Tehran’s “primary Iranian means of retaliation against adversary attacks” have historically been Tehran’s, according to the Washington-based think tank The Institute for the Study of War on Friday.
Iranian and Houthi militias could launch simultaneous attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and on Iranian-controlled Strait of Hormuz, putting both countries at risk of a global economic chokepoint.
The ISW wrote a comment on its website about the limitations of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” and how exhausted it is “after months of fighting the United States and Israel” before the proxy attacks never occurred.
A historian from St Andrews University in the UK told Al Jazeera on Monday that he believed “an off ramp” with the United States was likely to occur as the world prepared for Iran to respond to the US attacks.
Before the Iranian strike later that evening, he predicted there would be a lot of public bluster, but he predicted privately that “feelers will be out” (in a nutshell).
What transpired during the strike?
Iran struck Qatar on Monday around 7 p.m. local time (16:00 GMT).
Qatar referred to the attack as an “extremely dangerous escalation that flagrantly violates the State of Qatar’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The Iranian ambassador in Doha received a demarche.
However, it seems as though the “feelers” Ansari had referred to were already out.
Trump praised Iran on social media, saying, “I want to thank them for giving us early notice,” which made it possible for no lives to be lost and no injuries.
According to Trump, the warning also gave Qatar the opportunity to “prepare its air defenses,” downing 13 of the missiles and allowing one to fly “in a non-threatening direction.”
Since targeting Al Udeid before it struck Iran posed a low risk of casualties, satellite images suggested that the US had evacuated staff and aircraft from Al Udeid prior to its attack. Few significant losses were suffered by the Qatari Air Force and the US base at Al Udeid.
“I’m pleased to report that hardly any harm was done to Americans,” and that no one else was hurt. The most important thing is that they have eliminated everything from their “system”,” Trump wrote three hours after the attack.
He made the ceasefire announcement just two hours later.
“CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE!” Israel and Iran have fully agreed that a complete and total CEASEFIRE will occur (in approximately 6 hours after Israel and Iran have finished their final missions that are still in progress)! Trump stated on Truth Social, his social media platform, that he was “(.
Trump later revealed that “I almost simultaneously approached me and Iran and said, “Peace!”
The Iranian government made a statement early on Tuesday that it had “dedicated a humiliating and exemplary response to the enemy’s cruelty” and that it had framed the ceasefire as a “national decision to impose the cessation of war on the Zionist enemy and its vile supporters.
How do Qatar’s relations with Iran and the US stand?
Qatar, which is the world’s largest airbase, has collaborated closely with Washington on a number of contentious diplomatic negotiations, including those involving Hamas in Gaza and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
It has close diplomatic and economic ties to Iran at the same time. Energy expert Roudi Baroudi, a Qatari and Iranian-based energy expert, stated that “the South Pars, North Pars, and North Field have been a joint venture] for a long time, lasting for over 25 years.
According to Baroudi, the South Pars gas field holds almost as much gas as the other known gas fields on the planet.
Trump thanked the Qatari emir shortly after he announced the ceasefire.
He wrote on Truth Social, “I’d like to thank the Highly Respected Emir of Qatar for everything he has done to bring peace to the region.” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called the Qatari emir on Tuesday to “regret” the attack the day before.
Pezehkian made it clear that Iran’s strikes did not target Qatar and its citizens. The emir’s office stated in a statement that the State of Qatar will continue to be a neighboring, Muslim, and sisterly state and that he hopes that all interactions between the two nations will always be based on the principles of respect for the sovereignty of states and good neighborliness.
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, the prime minister of Qatar, stated on Wednesday that “Qatar made significant diplomatic efforts to calm tensions with regional and international partners.”
And Baroudi predicted that those efforts will have a significant impact beyond just Iran and Israel.
Because the Gulf is a powder keg of highly flammable oil and gas wellheads, offloading terminals, and tankers, he claimed, “Washington and Doha defused an unseen economic and ecological bomb.”
