❗️'War is coming': European and Arab officials warn US buildup around Gulf bases invites devastating Iranian response According to reporting by Reuters and statements delivered at the annual Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain, western and Arab diplomats warn that Washington's massive troop and asset concentration across bases in West Asia has brought the region to the brink of open war. European officials confirmed that US forces have assembled enough military hardware to strike Iran at short notice—potentially immediately following Tuesday's US midterm elections—prompting one senior European official in close contact with Gulf leaders to warn flatly that "war is coming" and that "nobody is in favour of this war." The prospect of renewed US aggression has confronted regional governments with a grim reality: the extensive network of US military bases established under the guise of security has instead transformed host nations into prime targets for Iranian retaliatory strikes. Earlier waves of combat demonstrated that Tehran's precision missile capabilities can easily bypass western air defense systems to strike critical US garrisons and adjacent energy infrastructure, exposing the structural vulnerability of Washington's militarized footprint across the Gulf. Discussions among security policymakers in Manama highlighted growing frustration among regional states forced to bear the catastrophic economic and operational costs of an unwanted confrontation. Despite diplomatic shuttling by Qatari and Turkish mediators seeking to bridge terms over the Strait of Hormuz blockade, Gulf leaders fear that any subsequent US attack will trigger an uncontainable Iranian response, destroying energy facilities and permanently unraveling the US-led security framework in West Asia.