Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted military exercises on three disputed Persian Gulf islands in late July 2023, a demonstration that drew immediate condemnation from the United Arab Emirates and renewed attention to one of the region’s most persistent territorial disputes. The drill, Defense News reported, involved the islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs — territory that the UAE claims as its own but that Iran has occupied and administered since 1971. The exercises underscored how Tehran continues to use the islands as a platform for projecting military presence across a waterway critical to global oil transit, a dynamic inseparable from broader sanctions pressure Tehran that Washington has pursued for years.

The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the exercises as a violation of its sovereignty, calling on Iran to either negotiate the dispute through bilateral talks or refer it to the International Court of Justice — a standing offer Tehran has consistently declined. Iran’s position remains that the islands are an integral part of its national territory, a claim it has backed not only with legal argument but with a sustained military presence that has included construction of facilities and periodic troop deployments over more than five decades.

Strategic Weight of Three Small Islands

The geographic significance of Abu Musa and the Tunbs exceeds what their size might suggest. Situated near the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, the islands sit astride shipping lanes through which a substantial share of the world’s seaborne oil exports transits daily. Iranian control gives the IRGC potential leverage over that chokepoint, a fact that has made the sovereignty dispute a concern not only for the UAE but for every government with an interest in uninterrupted energy flows from the Gulf. Analysts have long noted that Iran’s posture in the strait — including its capacity to threaten or interdict traffic — represents one of its most consequential asymmetric tools.

The IRGC, rather than Iran’s conventional military, conducted the exercises, a detail consistent with the Guard’s long-standing role as the primary operator of Iran’s Gulf strategy. The IRGC Navy maintains a fleet of fast-attack craft, missile batteries, and other assets suited to littoral warfare in the confined waters of the Persian Gulf. Defense News did not report specific weapon systems or unit designations involved in the July drill, and Iranian officials provided limited public detail about the exercise’s scope or duration.

Regional and Diplomatic Fallout

The timing of the drill is notable. It came amid a broader period of cautious Gulf diplomacy, including the March 2023 Chinese-brokered agreement to restore Saudi-Iranian relations — a development that had raised expectations, however tentatively, of reduced regional friction. The island exercises suggest Tehran has not interpreted that diplomatic opening as requiring any softening of its position on questions it regards as matters of sovereign territory. The UAE’s response, framing the drill as an illegal provocation and calling for international arbitration, reflects Abu Dhabi’s calculation that quiet diplomacy alone has not moved the needle.

For the United States, which maintains a significant naval presence in the Gulf under Fifth Fleet, the exercises are a reminder of how quickly the waterway can become a friction point. Analysts contacted by Forbes have assessed that an Iran ground offensive against U.S. positions in the region remains implausible, but the islands dispute illustrates that Tehran retains meaningful tools for signaling resolve short of direct confrontation. Whether the IRGC drill translates into any lasting change in the military posture on Abu Musa or the Tunbs — or remains a one-time demonstration — officials have not confirmed. What is clear is that Iran has no intention of allowing the islands question to drift toward resolution on anyone else’s terms. The wider question of how Gulf states, and their partners, respond will shape the security calculus in the strait for years to come, a concern that intersects with great-power competition playing out across the broader Indo-Pacific and Middle Eastern theaters.