Doha, Qatar — Late one morning in March 1999, a U.S. B-52 bomber took off from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, heading southeast. Seven more jets followed at two-minute intervals.
It began the U.S.-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, a campaign in which RAF Fairford served as both a pivotal launch platform for American jets and a fuel station for fighter aircraft. The British base had played a similar role during the Gulf War in 1991 and would again during the Iraq war in 2003 and in the early stages of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran that began on February 28, 2026.
But in October, the U.S. withdrew all 12 of its B-1 Lancer bombers from the Gloucestershire base, amid growing concerns that they were no longer safe there from an emerging Iranian threat. Days earlier, British security forces had made several arrests, and the UK government accused Iran of being behind a plot to target the base, a charge Tehran denied.
RAF Fairford is not alone. Earlier this month, the U.S. withdrew a dozen aircraft from another British base, RAF Mildenhall. And in July, reports said the U.S. had relocated many of its military assets from Gulf bases badly damaged by Iran during the war to bases in Jordan, while also considering a proposal to move them to Israel.
For decades, these bases have served as the sharp edge of the U.S. military’s ability to project power and wage war thousands of miles from home. For close allies in Europe and the Gulf, they have also functioned as security guarantors against other threats.
But Iran’s ability to seriously damage U.S. facilities in the Middle East during the war, and to pose a threat as far away as the UK, has for the first time turned critical strategic assets into potential liabilities, both for American allies and for the U.S. itself, according to analysts.
“The U.S. security umbrella is becoming a double-edged sword,” said Simon Mabon, a professor of international politics at Lancaster University, speaking to Al Jazeera. “When the security of U.S. bases is called into question, it changes Washington’s calculation of their strategic benefits. It also gives European and Gulf states reason to think seriously about the bases, given that they are becoming targets.”
![This video grab taken from images released by the Iranian state broadcaster (IRIB) on March 26, 2026, shows what it says is the second phase of the 82nd wave of missiles launched against Israel and US bases in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. [AFP]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==)
How the Iran war changed the bargain
Hosting American bases has long been seen as central to how U.S. allies in Europe, the Gulf, and East Asia deter threats they face.
Former President Barack Obama once spoke of an “ironclad commitment” to Gulf security, while Britain regularly invoked its so-called “special relationship” with the United States. In doing so, Britain and the Gulf long cast themselves as willing partners to a power that, at least before President Donald Trump, presented itself as a benevolent guarantor of its allies’ security.
But a series of recent security incidents, many linked to the war on Iran, has tested that narrative and raised questions about whose interests these commitments serve and whether hosting American forces could bring danger closer to home.
U.S. prosecutors have charged three men they describe as Iranian-backed operatives over their alleged roles in plotting nearly 20 attacks across the United States and Europe, including at RAF Fairford.
Meanwhile, in the Gulf, Iran explicitly cited the presence of U.S. bases as justification for targeting its neighbors, including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Iran also bombed Oman, which does not host a permanent U.S. base, and bombed Jordan and Iraq, beyond the Gulf, which do host major U.S. military facilities.
A Pentagon watchdog report released in September revealed that Iranian attacks damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. military installations in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan during the first four months of the war.
At least five KC-135 aerial refueling tankers were damaged when hit at Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia. At least one of those airborne early-warning and control aircraft was damaged on the ground in a subsequent strike.
Experts say these incidents are sharpening a security dilemma for U.S. allies in the Gulf and Europe. Hosting U.S. forces can expose host countries to retaliation in a war they did not initiate, while the same bases help defend some host states from attacks, including by intercepting missiles and facilitating weapons transfers.
The war disrupted flights and shipping, threatening the oil and gas exports on which much of the region depends. President Donald Trump said on Monday that further military action against Iran was unnecessary for now, but the U.S. naval blockade remained in place, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz had yet to return to normal.
“While the utility of hosting foreign military bases has always involved a risk-versus-assurance calculation, the perception among Gulf Arab states is certainly shifting,” said Mohammad Ali Shabani, a Middle East analyst, speaking to Al Jazeera. “The vulnerability of these assets is increasingly front of mind for host governments, which have not sought war, yet have been drawn into it without having had any real say.”
The US calculation
Washington faces a dilemma of its own. Bases in Europe or the Middle East give it the capacity to fight faraway wars, but their presence has also provided Iran with a long list of targets.
In March, an Iranian drone hit a hangar at a British base in Cyprus that the U.S. also uses for intelligence and logistics operations. Tehran threatened Bulgaria after reports that the NATO member had allowed the U.S. to use its Bezmer airbase for refueling aircraft used to attack Iran. Weeks later, Bulgaria’s defense minister announced that U.S. air tankers had left Bezmer permanently, and the country’s president declared that the “mission is over,” bringing relief to the village after which the base is named.
In the Middle East, several key bases used by U.S. troops were nearly rendered unusable, with bases in Kuwait suffering the heaviest damage, analysts said. An attack on the Port of Shuaiba killed six U.S. service members and destroyed an Army operations center. Iranian drones and missiles damaged aviation facilities and injured personnel at Ali Al Salem airbase, while strikes on Camp Buehring damaged maintenance and refueling facilities.
In Qatar, an Iranian strike damaged the early warning radar system at Al Udeid airbase, which houses the headquarters of U.S. Central Command’s air operations. In Bahrain, an Iranian drone struck communications equipment at the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet.
That damage raises questions about how much the U.S. can still use these bases once they come under attack. Gerd Nonneman, a professor of international relations and Gulf studies at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that the war had shown that some bases were “themselves very vulnerable” and “unable to fulfill many of the tasks they were established for.”
Why bases are harder to defend
Mark Hilborne, a senior lecturer at the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that “large bases are indeed becoming more easily targeted.”
“One of the technologies that has allowed this, alongside fairly cheap ballistic missiles, is drones,” he added.
Iran has invested heavily in developing cheap, domestically produced drones that inflict disproportionate damage and exhaust far more expensive interceptor missiles.
Meanwhile, in the UK, drones present different challenges for U.S. airbases. While the nature of the reported threat to RAF Mildenhall remains unclear, the Fairford case concerns an alleged plot. “The range of actors who might target bases has changed,” said Urban Coningham, a research fellow and course lead at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in the UK, speaking to Al Jazeera. “Bases are more vulnerable, and that changes the risk calculation.”
“Anyone can manufacture a drone in a basement. People looking to create mischief or mayhem can recruit organized criminals, making attacks harder to attribute,” he said.
He said all of this makes bases “more vulnerable, and that changes the risk calculation.”
‘Policy conundrum’
As Washington moves some military assets out of bases in the Gulf and Europe, it could also come to rely more heavily on Israel, its closest ally in the Middle East.
Shabani said there were “already signs that CENTCOM is moving towards using Israel as a key forward base.”
Israel launched the war on Iran in February alongside the U.S. With the oil and gas exports on which Gulf economies depend at risk, keeping U.S. forces nearby allows Washington to respond, but it also leaves those forces exposed to Iranian attacks.
“The longer-term solution is to work with partners and ensure that allied forces are ready to fend for themselves,” Coningham said.
“There is a debate within the U.S. policy establishment, and the Iranians are referencing it and saying that as long as U.S. forces are there, they are a target,” he said. “That is the policy conundrum for the U.S. Ultimately, they can’t see any alternative to having bases in some form.”
