A territorial dispute that spent decades as a footnote in Gulf diplomacy moved back to the centre of the war this week. Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Qalibaf warned on Thursday that any attack on Iran’s southern islands would “turn the Persian Gulf bloody,” signalling that Tehran regards the three disputed islands near the entrance of the strait as a red line it will defend with force.
Within 24 hours, Wall Street Journal correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov reported that the UAE is actively considering whether the current conflict presents an opportunity to reclaim the islands it has never formally relinquished.
The combination of those two signals, one a threat, one an intention, describes exactly the kind of low-probability, high-consequence flashpoint that turns a contained conflict into something significantly larger.
What the Islands Actually Are
Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb are three small islands sitting near the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, where the Persian Gulf narrows to approximately 50 kilometres at its tightest point.
Abu Musa covers 12.8 square km. The two shipping channels that oil tankers must use pass respectively north and south of the Tunbs, making these islands some of the most strategically positioned points in the entire Persian Gulf. Greater Tunb covers 10.3 square kilometres.
Lesser Tunb is just two square kilometres and is essentially uninhabited aside from Iranian military personnel. Their combined land area is negligible. Their combined strategic value, given that position over the shipping lanes, is extraordinary.
Military bases located on the islands could exert control over all traffic passing in and out of the region, which is precisely why both Iran and the UAE treat them as non-negotiable.
Fifty-Four Years of Dispute
Iran seized the islands on 30 November 1971, two days before the official formation of the UAE, taking Greater and Lesser Tunb from the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah by force and arriving on Abu Musa under a memorandum of understanding with the emirate of Sharjah that the latter signed under duress.
The UAE inherited the territorial dispute when both emirates joined the federation in 1971 and 1972.
Since then, the UAE has consistently called for either bilateral negotiations or referral to the International Court of Justice. Iran has consistently refused both, describing the islands as sovereign Iranian territory with historical roots stretching back to the Persian Empire.
In 1992, Iran hardened its position further by expelling UAE-sponsored workers operating a school, medical clinic, and power station on Abu Musa and dramatically increasing its military presence. The UAE took the claim to the UN Security Council in 1971, where consideration was deferred and never revisited.
In 1980, Saddam Hussein cited the islands as one of his justifications for the Iran-Iraq War. The dispute has never been resolved because neither side has had sufficient leverage or incentive to force a settlement.
Why Now Feels Different
What has changed is the context around the islands rather than the islands themselves. In December 2025, the UAE and GCC began formal talks about reclaiming the islands, with China’s foreign minister signing on to those discussions. The Arab League backed the UAE’s position in May 2025. Russia, which had previously been neutral, shifted toward supporting the UAE claim after pressure from Gulf states in 2023.
The current war has now created a set of conditions that did not previously exist: Iran is under sustained military pressure, its conventional forces are degraded, its supreme leader has just died and been replaced, and its attention is directed toward survival rather than peripheral deterrence. Qalibaf’s warning appears to reflect concerns that Gulf Arab states, possibly with US backing, could attempt to seize the islands or that the US might target IRGC military facilities there to weaken Iran’s control over key shipping routes.
The warning is also a signal to the UAE directly.
The Escalation Geometry
The specific danger of the islands in the current context is not that they block shipping on their own. They do not. The Strait of Hormuz is only about 50 kilometres wide and no more than 60 metres deep, making it vulnerable to being sealed off militarily even without the islands. The danger is what any move on them would trigger.
An attempt by the UAE to assert control, even with US backing, would be read by Tehran as an existential provocation at the worst possible moment. Iran has already struck Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain in retaliatory waves since 28 February. Oil tankers in Iraqi and Bahraini waters were on fire overnight Wednesday. A Thai vessel was struck in the strait itself. Adding a sovereignty confrontation over islands that Iran regards as its own territory to an already volatile situation would dramatically expand the scope of what is already the most serious Gulf crisis in decades.
The islands have not changed. The pressure around them, as the original article noted, very much has.
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