U.S. Embassy Struck as Conflict Widens

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Fighting kicks up another notch across the Middle East, leading the US to pull back diplomats from six countries. We'll look at how Gulf states are responding to waves of Iranian attacks and the challenge facing airlines trying to stay out of harm's way.

Ben Katz (0:48)

They're looking at one of the most significant aviation crises when it comes to war-related disruption that we've really ever seen.

Luke Vargas (0:55)

Plus how the conflict is threatening to send consumer prices higher. It's Tuesday, March 3rd. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal and here is the AM Edition of What's News. The top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

The US is evacuating a number of its diplomatic sites across the Middle East this morning, after its embassy in Saudi Arabia was hit by drones. We report there were no casualties in that attack, but that hasn't stopped the State Department from closing its embassy in Kuwait and ordering that non-emergency personnel and their families leave the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar. The US. Embassy in Abu Dhabi has also warned there could be militant attacks in the UAE. Those steps by the US come as Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that American military action against Iran is expected to intensify.

Rawan Maayeh (1:53)

The hardest hits are yet to come from the US military.

SPEAKER_6 (1:57)

The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.

Ben Katz (2:00)

Someone was screaming, how long will it take?

Chelsea Delaney (2:01)

I don't know how long it will take.

Rawan Maayeh (2:02)

We have objectives.

Chelsea Delaney (2:03)

We will do this as long as it takes to achieve those objectives, and we will achieve those objectives.

Luke Vargas (2:08)

Just this morning, Israel launched a fresh barrage of strikes on Tehran as well as against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel's military said that troops are also taking defensive positions in southern Lebanon in response to ongoing rocket fire from Hezbollah. Meanwhile, Gulf states are racing to hold back an onslaught of Iranian drones and missiles, in some cases in full view of thousands of tourists stuck in cities like Doha or Dubai. Before those countries, stockpiles of defensive weapons are depleted. For more on that, I'm joined by Rawan Maayeh, senior analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at Oxford Analytica, a part of Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Rawan, according to our reporting, some Gulf states could burn through their air defenses within days. Just to paint a picture of the pressure that they're under, the UAE said last night that over the prior three days, it had been targeted by 174 Iranian ballistic missiles as well as nearly 700 drones. Where is this situation leaving these countries?

Rawan Maayeh (3:05)

Well, certainly the Gulf states are in an incredibly difficult position.

They've sought a detente with Iran since 2023 and they've effectively attempted several times to mediate and de-escalate tensions between the US and Iran and yet have now found themselves very much on the front line of this war and they certainly appear to be bearing the overwhelming brunt of the Iranian retaliation. Taking the war to the Gulf states in this precise way is very much a strategic decision on the part of Tehran. We have an Iranian leadership that sees itself in a fight for survival and it is acting on an expressed intent and that expression has been made several times that it would seek to expand the conflict and by doing so it wants to significantly raise the cost for the United States and its regional allies and in fact the global economy as a whole we've seen oil and gas prices now starting to rise. It seeks that precise economic impact in order to push the Gulf neighbors to start pressing Washington for an end game. Now the silver lining as you've said is that there have been successful interceptions. The majority of incoming attacks did not hit their targets. Most had failed. But Iran is keen on expanding its list of targets. So we've seen civilian infrastructure being hit. We've seen soft targets being attacked. We've had international airports in Kuwait, Bahrain, Dubai and Abu Dhabi being hit, as well as hotels in Bahrain and Dubai. But beyond this material damage, it's really the psychological impact that has been quite profound. The barrage of strikes threatened to hit the soft appeal of the Gulf states.