DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – Donald Trump pressed US allies to send warships against Iran as drone swarms hit key infrastructure around the Persian Gulf.
Trump wields diplomatic pressure
Donald Trump demanded that seven nations immediately dispatch warships to the Strait of Hormuz. In an interview with the Financial Times, he stated that the United States would no longer shoulder the cost of safeguarding global oil routes alone and that any country drawing energy from the Gulf must now also contribute militarily and share surveillance expenses.
To reinforce his demands, he threatened to cancel a planned trip to China. He insisted on an answer from Beijing within the next two weeks and warned that, if the People’s Republic hesitated, Washington would freeze ongoing trade talks in Paris as well as the state visit in order to maximize economic pressure on the leadership in Beijing.
Drone strikes disrupt air traffic
The war hit civilian infrastructure in the Emirates with full force on Monday when a drone struck a fuel depot at Dubai Airport. Authorities temporarily shut down operations at what they described as the world’s busiest international hub as thick plumes of smoke rose above the terminals, and flights only resumed after several hours while logistical chaos continued to grip the city.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain also reported heavy attacks by Iranian projectiles. In Fujairah, a major fire broke out in an industrial zone, while Saudi air defenses intercepted more than 60 drones approaching Riyadh; in Abu Dhabi, a rocket strike killed a Palestinian civilian, further increasing the death toll in the Emirates since the war began on 18 February.
Araghchi draws a line between allies and foes
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sought to provoke with a targeted shipping blockade. According to the diplomat in Tehran on Monday, the Strait of Hormuz would remain open to most of the world, but the Revolutionary Guard would deny passage to ships from the United States, Israel and those nations he described as accomplices in aggression, in an effort to drive a wedge into the Western alliance.
At the same time, the regime circulated unproven accusations aimed at turning the Gulf states against Washington. It claimed the US was using bases in the Emirates to launch attacks on the key oil terminal on Kharg Island, a narrative Tehran used to justify massive strikes on civilian targets in Dubai and Abu Dhabi as oil prices climbed above 105 dollars per barrel.
Starmer refuses to fall in line
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer distanced himself from Washington’s martial rhetoric. While he sharply condemned attacks on Israel, he categorically rejected sending heavy warships, saying he did not want to draw the United Kingdom into a regional conflagration with an unpredictable outcome that could overstretch British armed forces.
Instead, London relied on technical support through mine-hunting underwater drones already stationed in the region. Trump reacted angrily to this restraint and accused Starmer of lacking solidarity, with the refusal to open British bases for attacks on Iran deepening what officials described as a dangerous chill between the two traditionally closest partners.
Wadephul demands clear war aims
In Brussels, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul called on the US and Israel to provide an honest assessment of their strategy. He demanded clarity on when their military objectives would be considered achieved and when there would again be room for a diplomatic solution, warning that without a defined architecture for regional security any deployment would remain blind action in a powder keg.
Berlin nevertheless acknowledged the threat posed by Iran’s blockade policy. Wadephul therefore backed targeted sanctions against the cadres in Tehran who sabotaged free shipping, arguing that pressure on the regime had to be maintained while communication channels to Tehran should not be severed entirely in order to avoid uncontrolled escalation.
Kallas shapes the European response
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas prepared two options for a European naval mission. One was to extend the existing Aspides mission from the Red Sea deep into the Persian Gulf, while member states also discussed a “coalition of the willing” in which individual nations would voluntarily pool capabilities to secure commercial sea lanes.
Rising prices for energy and fertilizers forced Europeans to act as the economic fallout of the crisis already directly hit the bloc’s budgets. Kallas emphasized ahead of the foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels that an open Hormuz strait was of fundamental interest to the entire community, adding that the decision on military engagement would once again test the resilience of European foreign policy.
Beijing opts for deliberate restraint
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian sidestepped direct questions about Trump’s ultimatum. He repeated standard calls for an immediate end to hostilities and pointed to the importance of stable global trade, while Beijing closely monitored developments but avoided any commitment to join the US‑led coalition in order not to jeopardize its own relations with Iran.
Even so, Chinese strategists were fully aware that time was running out. Lin stressed the irreplaceable role of top‑level diplomacy in light of the threatened cancellation of Trump’s visit, and with China heavily dependent on crude oil imports from the region, concern was growing behind closed doors over a lasting disruption of energy supplies and the associated price spikes.
Australia rules out sending warships
Australian Transport Minister Catherine King stated on Monday that Canberra would not deploy a warship to the Middle East. Despite requests from the White House, Australia saw its role more in the defensive support of the Emirates and, for the time being, ruled out direct participation in an offensive fleet mission in order to keep its own capacities focused on the Indo‑Pacific.
Instead of dispatching destroyers, Australia supplied air force surveillance aircraft and air‑to‑air missiles to the United Arab Emirates. King underlined that these measures served purely to defend against drone attacks, pursuing a cautious course that supported the alliance with the US while deliberately avoiding a direct confrontation with Iranian naval forces in the narrow Gulf.
Shoshani reports gains against Tehran
Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani announced massive strikes against Iran’s weapons arsenal. According to army estimates, 70 percent of Iranian rocket launchers had already been destroyed and 85 percent of air defense systems knocked out, while Israel expanded its attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities in a bid to permanently neutralize the nuclear threat as its air force hit hundreds of targets daily.
In southern Lebanon, Israeli ground troops advanced against Hezbollah’s elite units. Shoshani justified the operation as necessary to protect communities in northern Israel that had been under fire for weeks and said the campaign would continue until the threat posed by Radwan fighters along the border had been fully eliminated, regardless of mounting international criticism of the intensity of the strikes.
The human suffering behind the numbers
While generals counted their gains, Lebanon descended into a humanitarian catastrophe. More than 850,000 people were on the move, and Israeli strikes also hit aid workers; in Kfar Sir, two medics from Hezbollah’s health organization died while trying to retrieve wounded from the rubble of a damaged residential building, underscoring the desperate conditions faced by local rescue teams.
In the Gaza Strip, misery deepened through fresh tragedies. The collapse of a wall in Khan Younis buried women and children who had sought shelter in tents, while the UN estimated the rubble in Gaza at 61 million tons, a volume said to equal the weight of 25 Eiffel Towers, with each stone standing for a shattered life in a region that saw little hope for a peaceful future.
Does protecting oil justify any means?
Observers asked whether the international community now stood at an abyss it had dug itself through years of hesitation. An oil price of 105 dollars per barrel suggested markets no longer believed in a peaceful resolution, and if Trump replaced diplomacy with gunboat deployments, the question arose of who would control the chain reaction a direct attack on Iran might unleash and whether free trade could ever justify the mounting civilian toll.