Reem Al Hashimy, the minister for international cooperation for the United Arab Emirates, called Iran’s attacks on her country “unhinged” in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Sunday.

Of all the countries attacked by Iran — including Israel — the UAE has sustained the greatest number of missile and drone barrages. Its superior air defenses have intercepted nearly all of them.

“It’s been pretty unprecedented, what’s happened, and almost unhinged, I would say, to have Iran lash out at the very people who’ve been calling for de-escalation, who’ve been calling for this war to never actually even start, which has really taken us by surprise,” Al Hashimy said.

“We’ve borne the brunt of most of the missiles and drone attacks, and it’s really quite surprising for us that Iran has taken such an irrational path to fight the Gulf states and act in this quite unlawful, quite unacceptable manner,” she added.

Middle East analysts have interpreted Iran’s attacks on its neighbors, including its allies, as a tactic designed to drive a wedge between the Gulf countries and the United States, in the hope that they would pressure the U.S. to end the war. If that were the case, it has had the unintended opposite effect: The Arab states have banded together against Iran and aligned with the U.S.

Al Hashimy dismissed the notion that the UAE is angry at the U.S. for starting the war, explaining that Iranian actions are the issue at hand.

“Independent of how this began, the retaliatory measures that Iran has taken to attack the Gulf states are really where the issue we have is,” she said.

“I have to highlight here that Iran isn’t simply attacking military bases that have not launched a single missile from them, because we’ve made it clear that our territory would not be used to launch an attack against Iran,” she explained. “They are actually targeting civilian infrastructure as well, whether it’s an airport or it’s oil tankers.”

She also reaffirmed the strong relationship between the UAE and the U.S.

“Our relationship with the US is a long-standing strategic partnership,” she declared. “It’s a partnership that doesn’t falter in moments of crisis, but has been built on decades of trust and mutual respect.”

“We’ve been long-standing partners of the U.S., long-standing partners of Australia as well,” she added. “And this doesn’t deter us, because we’re also a resilient bunch, and we don’t take to being bullied around, either.”