A brazen drone attack near the UAE’s Barakah Nuclear Power Plant, covert Iranian air operations from Pakistani soil, covert Israel-Gulf diplomacy, and the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing: taken together, all these aspects depict a Middle East in flux, where every player is struggling to secure its interests amid the broader global churn.
A nuclear facility in the crosshairs
In their conversation on Hindustan Times’ Point Blank, executive editor Shishir Gupta and senior anchor Ayesha Verma started with the most alarming development: Three drones were fired upon the UAE, one of which fell inside the inner perimeter of the Barakat Nuclear Power Plant complex in Abu Dhabi. The drone struck an electrical generator site, causing emergency generators to be turned on to keep the reactor’s temperature under control.
The origin of the attack remains unclear. The drone reportedly came from the West, raising the possibility that Yemen’s Houthi movement, which is closely linked to Iran, may be behind it, or that another Iranian proxy is operating from that direction. Gupta emphasizes that what is clear is that escalation has occurred: once nuclear power plants are targeted, the risk matrix changes dramatically, raising questions of radiation leakage, emergency response, and long-term environmental impacts.
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Pattern is equally important. He said the UAE has now been attacked by Iran or its allies more times than any other country in the region, including Israel. This highlights the emirate’s vulnerabilities despite advanced air defense systems and underlines that at this stage of the conflict, the Gulf’s infrastructure – energy and now nuclear – is firmly in the crosshairs.
Hormuz, oil prices and the world on the edge
The Baraka incident unfolds against a broader strategic and economic backdrop centered on the Strait of Hormuz. According to Gupta, Iran continues to restrict shipping through the narrow chokepoint even as the United States enforces a blockade presence in the Gulf of Oman. This dual pressure has caused oil prices to rise sharply and is fueling inflation around the world.
The fallout is already visible: Middle Eastern economies are suffering, global inflation remains high, and Gupta warned that the next logical step would be for banks to raise interest rates, tightening financial conditions for households and businesses. The result, he says, is that “the whole world is in turmoil”, with the Middle East crisis intersecting with other conflicts, including the escalation of the Ukraine-Russia war as Kiev has stepped up its attacks, and renewed fighting in Gaza after Israel killed a senior Hamas commander.
In this crowded battlefield, ceasefire talks over Iran’s nuclear program and the situation on Hormuz continue, but Gupta sees “no meeting ground” so far. Despite repeated threats from US President Donald Trump, Tehran has no inclination to give up its nuclear capabilities, and is preparing another memorandum to Washington. The fundamental position on both the nuclear file and maritime navigation remains strong.
Also read: Pakistan playing double game in Iran war: Deploying army, jets under Saudi agreement
Yet Gupta does not believe the war is about to escalate into a dramatically new phase. He argues that the US has effected most of its stated military objectives: polarizing nuclear “sides”, humiliating elements of Iran’s armed forces, and targeting key leadership figures. What it has not achieved, and probably cannot achieve, is regime change in Tehran. The fundamentalist Shia state structure has neither collapsed nor appears close to collapsing. He suggests that this reality points not to an outright escalation, but to a messy compromise in which both sides step down partially to stabilize the situation.
He outlined one possible path: some kind of agreement on freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz at the end of the month, followed by a separate track on the nuclear issue. However, even in the best-case scenario, he estimates it will take at least six to seven months for the global economy to stabilize after the Strait of Hormuz is fully reopened.
Pakistan’s quiet role and China’s shadow
Turning to regional players, Verma asked about reports that Iranian military aircraft were operating from Pakistani territory. Gupta calls this “the realpolitik of war” and presents a picture that many capitals knew about but chose not to acknowledge publicly.
According to him, Pakistani bases – including Noor Khan in Sindh, facilities near Peshawar and even locations in Afghanistan – hosted Iranian transport aircraft from shortly after March 11, before the broader war broke out on February 28. Four to five such aircraft were seen operating regularly.
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He says New Delhi had full information: Indian agencies knew that Iranian Air Force planes were flying arms and ammunition obtained from China into and out of Iran from Pakistan. The Americans and the Chinese themselves knew. According to Gupta, Beijing was supplying Iran with weapons, drones, spare parts and even satellite imagery to help target US targets in the Middle East.
The most important claim is not that this supply chain existed, but that Washington allowed it to function. Gupta suggests that the US tolerated this pipeline partly to give China leverage with Tehran and partly to allow Pakistan to retain some influence with Iran. The result was a multilayered covert network – “above ground, below ground, overt, covert” – that linked Chinese factories, Pakistani bases, Iranian transport aircraft and battlefields throughout the Middle East.
Secret Tour and Quiet Alignment
Another aspect of this emerging scenario is deep, discreet, security coordination between Israel and the Gulf. Gupta cited reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had secretly traveled to the UAE on March 26 to meet top Emirati leaders. Netanyahu himself has confirmed such a visit, while the UAE Foreign Ministry has strongly denied it.
Gupta noted that an Israeli opposition leader had visited previously, and argued that, given the pattern of quiet contacts, it is reasonable to believe Netanyahu’s version. In the “fog of war”, as he calls it, many actions – whether the UAE’s role in retaliatory strikes on Iran or Saudi operations – are kept unacceptable to avoid increasing sensitivities within the broader Muslim ummah.
Also read: ‘I don’t have much time’: Pakistan shares revised Iran peace proposal with US
Israel’s interest is clear: it wants to publicly and privately stand with the UAE as it comes under attack, and help ensure that Emirati airspace is not repeatedly violated by Iranian missiles and drones. Providing systems like Iron Dome and other missile defenses is part of the equation, cementing a new security architecture on top of the Abraham Accords.
Trump in Beijing, Modi in Abu Dhabi
Gupta and Verma underline that the story of the Middle East is also being shaped by leaders far from the region. In Beijing, President Trump’s recent visit produced a very “overwhelming” result according to Gupta, despite criticism from parts of the American and Western media.
He says Chinese President Xi Jinping took a tough stance on Taiwan and warned Trump that any U.S. standoff with Taipei would bring out the “bad side” of China, and he bluntly described the U.S. as a declining power — an unprecedented statement made directly by a sitting U.S. president. Xi made it clear that he would not tolerate US interference on Taiwan.
On Iran, the two leaders found some common ground regarding the Strait of Hormuz and nuclear talks, but Gupta believes the meeting was “to benefit China in every way”. Beijing reaped most of the benefits, and little substance emerged other than a symbolic gesture by the American side to later renounce Chinese gifts. For a president known for taking “ballistic” stances on most issues, Trump’s visit was remarkably restrained, in Gupta’s view.
In contrast, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s brief two-and-a-half-hour stopover in Abu Dhabi was, in Gupta’s assessment, a strategically important moment in India-UAE relations. Welcomed by UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Modi was building on a relationship he has personally nurtured.
For 34 years, no Indian political leader visited the UAE; Modi has now visited there eight times in 12 years. The change is obvious: when IC-814 was hijacked and diverted to Dubai’s Al Minhad airbase in 1999, even India’s ambassador was not allowed inside, but today the UAE has been formally designated as a strategic defense partner of India. Both countries have promised to support each other against third-party threats, marking a major change in the security geometry of the Gulf.
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Economically, the visit reinforced the UAE’s commitments to invest approximately $5 billion in India, expand its strategic oil reserves on Indian soil from 5 million to 30 million barrels, and build reserves in LPG and LNG. In essence, the UAE is underpinning India’s energy security, while India, in turn, promotes the UAE’s food and defense security.
A fractured Middle East system
Stepping back, Gupta sees the Middle East “redefining itself” following the American and Israeli attacks on Iran, with Trump acting as the “Lone Ranger” and each state being forced to prioritize its own survival. The Gulf Cooperation Council’s collective security idea looks bad: The UAE is deeply frustrated by the lack of support from fellow Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia.
Today, he maps a fragmented landscape:
- The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are leaning toward progressive, moderate Islam, associating closely with the US, India and Israel and rejecting Muslim Brotherhood-style politics and jihadist groups.
- Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as the central Sunni power – the “Sunni shoulder of Islam” – expecting respect from others.
- Qatar is playing all sides, maintaining ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and engaging multiple actors, including Pakistan.
- Turkey is envisioning itself as the heir to the Ottoman legacy and attempting to act as a major regional pole with an eye on Pakistan and the wider Muslim world.
These fault lines, layered over the Iran-US confrontation, the Gaza war, and the Ukraine conflict, create an unstable and complex strategic environment. From Barak’s targeted generators to the back-and-forth on secret flights and secret visits, the picture that emerges from the Gupta-Verma conversation is of a region where open alliances and secret bargains exist, and where the next crisis could be triggered as easily by a drone strike as by a diplomatic mistake.
