Gulf countries targeted by Iran after the U.S. and Israel attacks were reportedly frustrated by the escalating regional conflict, an analyst revealed Tuesday.
CNN's political and national security analyst David Sanger described how Iran's objective is to put financial pressure on the countries allied with the United States and Israel in the fallout over the military strikes, all while midterm elections loom for President Donald Trump.
"Look, the Iranians haveone big mission here: it'ssurvive," Sanger said. "If they're going tosurvive, they have to wait out President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. If they'regoing to wait out President Trump, it means they need tomake it painful enough, longenough that he's beginning toget toward the elections. You'rebeginning to see significantcasualties. And it gets back tothat question that Steve Witkoff, his chief envoy, askedabout a week before the warbroke out. During the negotiations, he said, 'The president is curious aboutwhy the Iranians haven'tcapitulated.' Well, the answer isthat the whole meaning andpurpose of the current Iranianstate is to stand in oppositionto the U.S., and so it's not asif, even with the loss of the Supreme Leader, that they'rejust going to say, 'well, this isover.'"
He also suggested what other types of attacks could come next from Iran.
"They'vegot other techniques, cyber [attacks]. Wehaven't begun to see anythinghere in the United States. Ihope we don't. But I wouldn'tbe shocked if we did."
Several Gulf nations, which were not reportedly prepared for the attacks, have also had furious reactions to the conflict behind the scenes, Sanger said. Iran could also be looking at what countries are important to the American economy and aiming to target those economic hubs.
"Well, look, the U.S. is their major patron," Sanger added. "You know eight months ago, what were we discussing with UAE? With the UAE, how many data centers we're going to build there? Right. So the Iranian strategy at this point is not necessarily to go after U.S. bases. It's to go after the financial engines of these countries and say the price for sticking with the U.S. is high in public. They have been very supportive of the U.S. so far. In private, they have been raging, angry that they weren't consulted on the start of this war to begin with, right? Many of them didn't even know what the start date was going to be, so they feel like they are sort of collateral damage in President Trump's confrontation with the Iranians, which many of them don't think is timed right."