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The US has long cloaked its engagements with the Arab world in the rhetoric of mutual interest and strategic partnership, yet Israel’s Sept. 9 airstrike on Doha — carried out by 15 jets targeting a residential building, and killing six, including a Qatari security officer and the son of a Hamas negotiator — has torn away that veil entirely.

It was not merely another aggressive strike in Israel’s campaign of regional escalation and wanton recklessness, but also a gross violation of Qatar’s sovereignty: an attack on a major non-NATO ally hosting the largest US military base in the region, Al-Udeid, where over 10,000 American troops are stationed. Moreover, Qatar has poured billions into US treasury bonds, invested over $45 billion in American infrastructure and corporations, and purchased more than $26 billion in US defense equipment. Yet, when Israeli jets entered Qatari airspace, the US offered nothing more than a belated warning — delivered 10 minutes after the attack began.

Despite Doha’s unwavering role as a principal mediator, tirelessly facilitating ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel at the explicit request of Washington, the attack was not met with pre-emption or protection but outright betrayal. Reports confirming US foreknowledge of the operation, coupled with the inexplicable failure of layered, highly sophisticated American air defenses to intercept or even warn Qatar, lay bare the fiction of Washington’s security guarantees. The attack also represented a conscious Israeli decision to sabotage diplomacy and a horrific American failure to uphold its commitments, revealing an alliance that operates with contempt for Arab sovereignty and peace.

The brazen assault also confirmed the Gulf’s most profound strategic anxiety in the last decade: that American priorities are now violently divorced from those of its Arab partners. Despite Qatar’s indispensable role as a peace-broker in the Arab region, coupled with bilateral commitments to generate a US-Qatar economic exchange worth $1.2 trillion, the country’s sovereignty was sacrificed for Israel’s tactical objectives.

The administration’s feeble warning, delivered as Israeli jets were already inbound, exposes a sobering truth: A major non-NATO ally is not protected, but patrolled.

Meanwhile, for countries such as the UAE and Bahrain, which normalized relations on the promise of US-backed stability, this attack sets a chilling precedent. Their multibillion-dollar air defense networks, purchased from Washington, proved useless against an attack facilitated by their guarantor’s acquiescence. And, if a country like Qatar, with its privileged military relationship, can be attacked with impunity, what assurances do other less influential states have?

The answer is unequivocal: Washington’s security assurances are negotiable, but Israeli impunity is not. This is no longer the muted retreat of American power, as many envisioned, but reckless abdication, leaving those who relied on Washington exposed and vulnerable to the next unilateral strike.

Beyond Doha, even the Gulf Cooperation Council faces an unpleasant paradox.

GCC member states collectively hold over $3 trillion in sovereign wealth and have invested billions in advanced American defense systems like THAAD and Patriot batteries. Yet this hardware proved meaningless when Israeli willfulness penetrated Qatari airspace unimpeded in order to bomb a building near schools and embassies. The failure is not technological but political: a superpower that would not and did not activate defenses to protect a major partner from its own client state. It follows a dangerous pattern — from the 2019 attack on Saudi oil fields to the June 2025 missile barrage on Al-Udeid — each time exposing the hollowness of American assurances.

The US has chosen to outsource its Middle East policy to a belligerent Israeli government that shows no interest in peace.

Hafed Al-Ghwell

As a result, the Arabian Peninsula is faced with an agonizing question: Are these partnerships designed for mutual security, or do they merely subsidize US weapons sales while providing diplomatic cover for Israeli military aggression and reckless unilateralism?

Qatar’s resolute declaration to continue mediation efforts, even after suffering a direct military attack on its capital, stands in profound moral contrast to the collapse of American credibility. Such grotesque asymmetry is perhaps the final unraveling of the post-Cold War security architecture in the Middle East, where US power was synonymous with guaranteed stability. In its place is a dangerous new reality: a region where a US-armed client state operates with complete impunity.

In a way, the $5.6 trillion the US spent on its post-9/11 wars failed to purchase any semblance of order. Rather, chaos is the War on Terror’s legacy, empowering rogue actors such as Israel to act unilaterally, while Washington provides diplomatic cover, stern letters, and muted finger-wagging. For now, collective GCC condemnation, including a rare solidarity visit from the UAE’s president, signals a definitive Arab recognition that the era of relying on American assurances is over. The region must now navigate a volatile arena no longer shaped by Arab-US mutual interest, but by the reckless ambitions of Washington’s most reckless ally.

The Doha attack will irrevocably accelerate the Gulf’s military and strategic decoupling from Washington. ºÚÁÏÉçÇø’s development of a domestic arms industry and the UAE’s deepened security pacts with France and Russia are no longer contingency plans but necessities. For Qatar, the Sept. 9 attack demands a fundamental recalibration. How can any country engage in US-brokered diplomacy when the same Washington permits one party to bomb the negotiation venue? The strike confirmed the US is no longer content being a mediator but a direct enabler of Israeli unilateralism, reducing Washington’s role from peace-broker to guarantor of chaos.

It is perhaps too soon to determine how regional responses are likely to be fractured or unified, but either way, it will prove consequential. However, there will be no unified Arab military reaction — pan-Arab military solidarity remains impossible, but we will witness calculated realignment: increased support for Palestine, accelerated nuclear hedging programs, and deeper security partnerships with Moscow and Beijing. While some capitals may tolerate Israeli aggression through silence, others, led by Qatar’s principled diplomacy, will pursue multilateral accountability.

But none will trust Washington again anytime soon.

The larger tragedy is that this moment could have been avoided. Instead, the US has chosen to outsource its Middle East policy to a belligerent Israeli government that shows no interest in peace, stability, or mutual security. The result is a region less secure, more polarized, and increasingly willing to look beyond Washington for protection.

When even a partner like Qatar is not safe, no one is.

In the end, the bombing in Qatar is an attack on the idea of enduring American leadership, and will long be remembered as the moment the Arab world decided that the US was no longer a friend, but an unpredictable and disinterested power whose promises are written in sand.

• Hafed Al-Ghwell is senior fellow and program director at the Stimson Center in Washington DC and senior fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies. X: @HafedAlGhwell