For a generation of travellers and investors, the Gulf was a byword for engineered safety: air-conditioned, tax-free, and insulated from the turbulence that defined so much of the broader Middle East. That reputation, painstakingly constructed over decades, has been shattered in the space of a weekend.
On 28 February 2026, Israel and the United States launched a joint attack on various sites in Iran. The operation, codenamed Roaring Lion by Israel and Operation Epic Fury by the United States, targeted key officials, military commanders, and facilities, including the compound of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the strikes. The US president subsequently called for regime change following the massive US and Israeli attack, which prompted an unprecedented wave of retaliatory strikes by Iran.
When the United States and Israel bombed Iran in an attempt to destroy its nuclear programme in June last year, Iranian retaliation appeared calibrated to avoid wider regional escalation. This time, however, after President Donald Trump ordered a campaign aimed at removing the Iranian regime and following the assassination of Khamenei, Tehran's response has been far less restrained, with a barrage of missiles striking US bases and heavily populated civilian areas in US-allied countries across the region.
Dubai's Shattered Façade
On Saturday alone, Iran fired 137 missiles and 209 drones across the UAE, with fires and smoke reaching the Dubai landmarks of Palm Jumeirah and Burj Al Arab. By Sunday, the UAE's defence ministry confirmed three people had been killed and 58 injured after Iran launched 165 ballistic missiles, 541 drones and two cruise missiles on the UAE since Saturday. The three killed were migrant workers from Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
Dramatic footage showed people fleeing a smoke-filled passageway strewn with furniture and debris at Dubai International Airport, where officials confirmed four staff had been injured. According to reports, Terminal 3 at Dubai International was hit by a drone, prompting its evacuation; the airport was then struck again in the early hours of Sunday morning, with black smoke billowing above the city. DP World suspended operations at Jebel Ali Port, the largest container port in the Middle East and a key piece of Dubai's economy, after a berth caught fire due to debris from an intercepted missile.
An intercepted Iranian drone reportedly caused a minor fire on the Burj Al Arab's outer facade, while a berth at Jebel Ali Port caught fire due to debris from an aerial interception. Dubai was almost unrecognisable over the weekend. On a winter weekend during peak tourist season, the city's beaches, malls and hotel brunches would normally be packed. Instead, highways were largely empty and the sky was clear of the constant stream of arriving and departing aircraft.
Australians caught in the chaos described harrowing scenes. According to 9News, Carina Rossi, a senior editor at nine.com.au who was staying at Atlantis on Palm Jumeirah, witnessed debris fall from the sky into the hotel pool. "The debris didn't explode, thankfully. But it was a loud bang, something I'd never heard before," she said. Australian Olympic swimmer Stephanie Rice, who lives in Dubai with her family, took to Instagram to ask followers for prayers in what she described as a "scary situation."
A Strategic Calculation with Civilian Consequences
While the US has military bases in the region that have also been targeted, analysts say Iran's strategy is to inflict pain on America's Middle Eastern allies, including the UAE, hoping they will pressure President Donald Trump to end combat operations. According to the IRGC, al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait, al-Dhafra Air Base in the UAE, and the US naval base in Bahrain have all been targeted.
Conflict is unusual in the Gulf, which has traded on its reputation for stability to become the Middle East's commercial and diplomatic hub. "The Gulf states are sandwiched between Iran and Israel, and have to bear the worst inclinations of both," said Bader al-Saif, an assistant professor at Kuwait University. An expert on the Persian Gulf at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Cinzia Bianco, was more blunt, writing on X that Dubai's reputation may never recover: "This is Dubai's ultimate nightmare, as its very essence depended on being a safe oasis in a troubled region."
From a national security perspective, the breadth of Iran's retaliation is significant. The US has amassed its largest military presence in the Middle East in decades, featuring two carrier strike groups: the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea and the USS Gerald R. Ford off Israel's coast, supported by more than 150 aircraft and dozens of warships. Iran's response, deliberately targeting the civilian infrastructure of states hosting those assets, represents a doctrine of coercive punishment directed at Washington's regional partners rather than solely at the US military itself.
The Hormuz Question and the Global Economic Shock
The conflict's most consequential variable, for Australia and the world, may not be the immediate military exchanges but what happens to the Strait of Hormuz. After coming under attack from the US and Israel, Iran appeared to exercise one of its options for retaliation: putting a squeeze on the strategic Strait of Hormuz. This narrow waterway handles about a quarter of the world's seaborne oil trade. A semi-official Iranian media outlet described the strait as effectively shut, and ships reported hearing a radio broadcast purporting to come from the Iranian navy announcing that transit was banned, prompting some tanker owners to begin avoiding the waterway.
Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that "closure of the Strait of Hormuz would disrupt roughly a fifth of globally traded oil overnight, and prices wouldn't just spike, they would gap violently upward on fear alone." He warned the shock would reverberate far beyond energy markets, tightening financial conditions, fuelling inflation, and pushing fragile economies closer to recession. Brent crude settled near $73 per barrel on the Friday before the strikes were confirmed; analysts warned prices could surge $5 to $10 above that baseline when markets reopened, with some forecasting a jump of $20 per barrel or more if there were no signs of de-escalation.
Jebel Ali Port and the adjacent free-trade zone account for 36 per cent of Dubai's GDP, and hundreds of ships near the Strait of Hormuz have frozen in place out of concern that Iran will close the vital chokepoint. For Australia, the stakes are direct: any sustained disruption to LNG flows from Qatar and the Gulf would hit Australian competitors in Asian energy markets, while petrol prices domestically would rise sharply on the back of crude oil spikes. 7News has reported petrol prices are already tipped to surge an extra 30 cents per litre as Middle East tensions escalate.
Australians Stranded, Policies Voided
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has raised its level of advice for the UAE to "Do Not Travel," noting that the UAE has closed its airspace and that Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports are both shut. The Smartraveller portal was updated to its highest alert level, "Do Not Travel," for Iran and Iraq, and "Reconsider Your Need to Travel" for the wider Gulf region, including the UAE, Qatar, and Jordan.
Qantas flight QF9, the direct Perth-to-London service, was forced to take a significant detour over Southeast Asia and Central Asia on Sunday morning, adding nearly four hours to the flight time and requiring a technical refuelling stop in Singapore. DFAT estimates that upwards of 15,000 Australians are currently affected in the region. Most Australians travelling to the UK or Europe rely on what is known as "the kangaroo route" via Dubai on Emirates, Doha on Qatar Airways, or Abu Dhabi on Etihad, and those hubs have become bottlenecks.
Of 22 Australian travel insurance providers analysed by Finder, not one offers standard cover for acts of war. With more than 2,300 flights cancelled across the region and airspace shut across eight Middle Eastern nations, that insurance gap is about to hit a great many Australian wallets. There is also a trap many travellers miss: a Dubai or Doha layover, even a two-hour transit, can void coverage for an entire trip. Travellers do not need to be heading to the Middle East to be caught; they merely need to be transiting through it. Australians in the region are urged to register with DFAT via Smartraveller and contact the Consular Emergency Centre on +61 2 6261 3305.
The Broader Calculus
The war raises questions that go beyond the immediate humanitarian crisis. Critics of the US-Israeli operation argue that the assassination of a head of state, even one with Khamenei's record of repression, sets a dangerous precedent for international law and risks producing a power vacuum in Tehran that could prove more volatile than what preceded it. Iran's top security official, Ali Larijani, said the US and Israel are seeking to "plunder and disintegrate" the country, as Tehran moves to shore up control following Khamenei's death. Larijani said a temporary leadership council would be established and warned that any secessionist groups attempting to take action would face a harsh response.
Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam urged restraint following the Israeli strikes on Iran, stressing that Lebanon must not be dragged into a wider regional war and should prioritise its own security and stability. Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi expressed "dismay" at the outbreak of violence in spite of earlier Iran-US negotiations, urging the United States to "not get sucked in further" into the conflict. Those voices of caution deserve serious weight. The international order rests, in part, on norms that even adversaries can rely upon. When those norms fracture, every state, including Australia, faces a more unpredictable environment.
At the same time, the argument for inaction carries its own costs. Iran's nuclear programme, its proxies, and its decades-long campaign of regional destabilisation represent a genuine threat to the rules-based order that underpins Australian security and trade. The International Atomic Energy Agency had long warned of Iranian non-compliance. The question reasonable people can debate is not whether Iran posed a threat, but whether this operation, at this moment, with these methods, was the most effective and lawful way to address it, and whether Washington adequately consulted allies, including Canberra, before committing the region to a conflict with consequences that are still unfolding.
What is already clear is that the costs are being borne by civilians in Dubai hotel rooms, by migrant workers near Jebel Ali Port, by Australians stranded in transit, and by anyone who fills a petrol tank. The strategic implications will take longer to assess than the wreckage now visible across the Gulf skyline.