Iran wasted some missiles it couldn’t spare on Monday taking pointless pot shots at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

That base is the largest American military installation in the region and it’s protected by a layered air defense system. Even if it weren’t, Iran gave Doha and, either directly or indirectly, Washington, advanced notice of the “attack” in order to reduce the risk to US servicemen and women.

Yes, you read that right. Iran burned up scarce missiles for the sole purpose of keeping up appearances at home, where a near complete internet outage means locals are (or at least were) cut off from outside information.

According to a trio of Iranian officials who spoke to The New York Times, Tehran conveyed to Qatar that the regime needed the “symbolism” which goes along with a counterattack, but expressed a desire to “minimize casualties.” It was, the Times went on, “a similar strategy to 2020 when Iran gave Iraq heads up before firing ballistic missiles at an American base following the assassination of [Qassem Soleimani].”

Let’s pause there for a moment, because that’s still an under-appreciated piece of recent military history. “Operation Martyr Soleimani,” in which the Guards launched a dozen missiles at the al-Asad Airbase in Iraq five days after Donald Trump assassinated the world’s most feared military-intelligence operative, was pure theater. As in: A total charade, carried out with the Pentagon’s implicit approval for the purposes of allowing Khamenei to save face at home.

In a testament to just how inept Khamenei’s military is from the perspective of conventional warfare, the Guards weren’t even capable of executing a stage-managed fireworks show without stumbling into tragedy. Towards the end of that “operation,” someone in Tehran panicked at the sight of what they thought was an incoming US cruise missile. It was actually a Boeing 737. Iran shot it down killing all 176 people aboard. In what the superstitious among you might call a macabre example of foreshadowing, that plane was operated by Ukraine International Airlines. It was bound for Kyiv.

Coming back to the present day, the Guards issued a statement that was virtually identical to the rhetoric employed by Tehran in and around similarly (and, again, deliberately) ineffective missile attacks. “[We] targeted the Al Udeid base in Qatar with destructive and forceful missiles,” they said. “We warn our enemies that the era of hit and run is over.”

I implore you: Try to appreciate how pitiful this is. The message from Tehran to Doha was basically this: “Tell Trump that, regrettable as this is, we have to fire some missiles. And although we’re reasonably sure they wouldn’t make it through anyway, anything’s possible, so make sure all the planes — and especially all the people — are out of the way. Also, we’ll have to say something about how ‘powerful’ the attack was. Just ignore that, please.”

I’m not joking. I mean, I am. That’s obviously not verbatim from any transcript of the backchanneling, but this is almost standard operating procedure for the Iranians by now. Even when they’re firing at Israel, and even when they’re trying to hit stuff, they don’t want to do a lot of damage. Because that’s just an excuse for Israel to kill another top general. Or another nuclear scientist. Or who knows, Khamenei himself.

The friendly heads-up notwithstanding, launching missiles into Qatar was a bad idea. Even if the Iranians weren’t trying to hurt anybody, missile defense systems throw off a lot of debris. Doha’s a place of carefree opulence and garish escapism. The last thing they need is for someone’s Lamborghini to get crushed by a falling missile fragment.

There’s also an annoying element of ingratitude on display here. Qatar shelters Hamas’s politburo. They’re a local go-between and they pursue an independent foreign policy. Putting missiles into their airspace is an “uncool” thing to do, for lack of a better way to put it.

As for the Saudis — and again, I’m setting aside that in the current circumstances, everyone understands Iran’s hand is being forced and that these are the desperate flailings of a cornered autocracy, not an attempt to bully anyone — this is the sort of thing that brings back bad memories of September 2019, when a still-alive Soleimani targeted the Kingdom’s energy infrastructure in a spectacularly brazen attack which briefly knocked out half of Saudi oil production.

Although the Saudis have a complicated relationship with Doha, Iranian missiles in airspace belonging to robed Sunni royals is no good. Riyadh chastised Tehran “in the strongest terms” following Monday’s incident, which the Kingdom called a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the State of Qatar, its airspace, international law and the United Nations Charter.”

Tehran would be advised not to keep this up. If they do, they’ll jeopardize the delicate Saudi-Iran rapprochement and in doing so, play right into Benjamin Netanyahu’s narrative, which says rapprochement with Tehran is pointless and that the better move for the Saudis is diplomatic ties with Israel despite the tragedy in Gaza.

The US shot down all the Iranian missiles fired at Al Udeid save one which was “headed in a nonthreatening direction,” as Trump later put it. In the same social media post, he thanked Iran “for giving early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured.”

Stocks rallied and oil plunged nearly 9%.