“The Gulf countries — Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE — were shocked when they got hit by Iran. These countries were not expected to be hit.”

Iranian retaliation against the Gulf states was one of the most widely predicted events in the entire conflict. CNN's fact checks found that numerous regional experts "had not only thought but publicly predicted that Iran would retaliate by striking countries in the region," and that Iranian officials themselves had publicly said this was their plan before the February 2026 war began.

It had literally already happened. In June 2025, after U.S. strikes on its nuclear sites, Iran fired missiles at the U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest American base in the Middle East. A country that had been struck by Iranian missiles eight months earlier could not plausibly be "shocked" or "not expected to be hit" when Iran retaliated again in 2026. CNN's Daniel Dale documented this as part of a running pattern: Trump claims "nobody" knew or expected things that lots of people knew or expected, from "nobody knew health care could be so complicated" in 2017 to "nobody" predicting a pandemic in 2020. As Dale noted, if nobody expected Iranian attacks on Gulf nations, then the failure to prevent them "could [not] be the president's fault." Arab officials had in fact personally warned Trump and his top aides that a U.S. attack on Iran would bring counter-attacks on neighboring countries. "Various experts had not only thought but publicly predicted that Iran would retaliate by striking countries in the region. Iranian officials had themselves said this was their plan." — Daniel Dale, CNN, March 28, 2026