Qatar and UAE Report Iranian Missile Attacks Amid Escalating Regional Tensions
On Wednesday, QatarEnergy, the state-owned oil giant, reported extensive damage to its Ras Laffan LNG processing facilities, attributing the destruction to Iranian missile strikes. These alleged attacks came hours after Iran had reportedly issued evacuation warnings for various oil facilities across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. Separately, the UAE announced the shutdown of its gas facilities
early Thursday after intercepting rockets, also implicating Iran. Mainstream outlets like Al-Monitor frame these incidents as unprovoked Iranian aggression, echoing narratives that consistently portray Iran as an irrational actor. This perspective frequently omits the context of ongoing, unchecked US-Israeli joint military operations targeting Iran's own energy infrastructure, including prior
strikes on the South Pars and Asaluyeh facilities. The Western press rarely interrogates the long history of Israeli covert operations and cyberattacks, such as the Stuxnet virus in 2010 which severely damaged Iranian nuclear centrifuges, portraying Iran's responses as isolated acts rather than retaliatory measures within a broader conflict. This pattern of reporting ignores the significant
asymmetry in military capabilities and historical provocations. For over 45 years, Iran has been under various forms of international sanctions, often led by the United States, which have crippled its economy and access to essential goods, including medicines. Consider the economic strangulation of Cuba, ongoing for 62 years, or the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, which established a precedent