Day: August 19, 2026
Quantity – Wikipedia
Other Key Takeaways:
The UAE has previously supported US efforts to undermine Iranian control of the strait, which suggests that the UAE’s decision is part of a broader effort to raise the costs of Iran’s attempts to control or disrupt maritime traffic.
The UAE’s decision will further weaken Iran’s already deteriorating economy by restricting both its access to essential imports and its ability to repatriate export revenues and circumvent sanctions. Roughly one-third of Iran’s imports have come from the UAE, and the largest proportion of Iranian imports in the last five years come from the UAE have made the UAE.
Iran will likely respond to the UAE’s decision with greater military and economic pressure against the UAE rather than abandon its efforts to secure greater control over the Strait of Hormuz. ISW-CTP previously also assessed that Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Major Ahmad Vahidi’s faction — whom ISW-CTP continues to assess is driving regime decision-making — may be willing to accept some economic costs and the risk of renewed war if doing so enables them to achieve their core objectives, including Iranian control over the strait.
Increasing Emirati alignment with the United States will also drive longer-term hostility between the UAE and Iran. It is not clear the extent to which the Iranian regime decisionmakers have internalized the ramifications of long-term hostility with the UAE, given the economic relationship between the two states.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al Zaydi is under pressure from both the United States and Iranian-backed Iraqi actors over Iraqi militia disarmament but appears to be responding primarily to militia pressure at this time. Zaydi reportedly planned to increase security measures and deploy a special Iraqi Counter Terrorism unit near Jurf al Sakhar, south of Baghdad, to monitor the movement of people and vehicles, and would not lead to a raid or a military incursion into the militia’s key site.
Iran has also dispatched senior Iranian officials, including Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, to Baghdad in recent days to discourage conflict between the Iraqi federal government and the militias. These officials are also discouraging disarmament.
