Arab Gulf states are shocked and dismayed that they have been continually targeted by Iran during its war with the United States and Israel.

Since its outbreak on February 28, Iran has fired roughly 1,300 ballistic missiles and 2,500 drones at the Persian Gulf. Approximately 60 percent of Iranian projectiles have been aimed at countries there.

Israel has been the object of the remainder of Iran’s attacks.

Beyond striking oil and natural gas fields and refineries, Iran has hit civilian infrastructure such as ports, airports, hotels, and even a desalination plant.

These attacks have caused enormous damage to the economies of Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Oman, all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Qatar has been the worst hit. Its Ras Laffan gas field, the world’s largest, has been so seriously damaged that repairs could take up to five years. Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura and Yabu refineries have been struck, as have the United Arab Emirates’ Fujairah oil terminal and the Habshan gas processing terminal. Fires have broken out at Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmad and Mina al-Abdullah refineries and Bahrain’s Sitra refinery.

Notably, Iran has struck Oman. Missiles have rained down on the ports of Salah and Duqim and the Sohar industrial zone.

Oman had been careful “to balance cooperation with the United States with close relations with Iran,” says Allison Minor of the Atlantic Council. “The Omani approach, colloquially known as ‘friend to all, enemy to none,’ allowed Oman to be a mediator with the Iranians and previously protected the country from the kind of Iranian threats experienced by its neighbors.”

By all accounts, Iran has caused damage to the tune of $200 billion to $400 billion in terms of energy losses and trade disruptions.

The current crisis has been described by the International Energy Agency as “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.”

It has led to a scramble for solutions.

The United States has promised to release oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is only 60 percent full. And the US Treasury Department, in a bid to calm markets, has issued licenses for........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)