Good catch.
The threat is directed at us. But not just in the Gulf.
DPRK has done this as a tactic as well.
The Rumsfeld Commission in 1998 identified cruise missiles (and UAVs) as a potential threat to the homeland (launched from a barge of other craft just off the US coast).
High stakes poker. Very high stakes.
from the 1998 "Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States " (aka "The Rumsfeld Commission")
(6 years ago)
II. Executive Summary
A. Conclusions of the Commissioners
The nine Commissioners are unanimous in concluding that:
* Concerted efforts by a number of overtly or potentially hostile
nations to acquire ballistic missiles with biological or nuclear
payloads pose a growing threat to the United States, its deployed
forces and its friends and allies. These newer, developing threats in
North Korea, Iran and Iraq are in addition to those still posed by the
existing ballistic missile arsenals of Russia and China, nations with
which the United States is not now in conflict but which remain in
uncertain transitions. The newer ballistic missile-equipped nations'
capabilities will not match those of U.S. systems for accuracy or
reliability. However, they would be able to inflict major destruction
on the U.S. within about five years of a decision to acquire such a
capability (10 years in the case of Iraq). During several of those
years, the U.S. might not be aware that such a decision had been made.
* The threat to the U.S. posed by these emerging capabilities is
broader, more mature and evolving more rapidly than has been reported
in estimates and reports by the Intelligence Community.
* The Intelligence Community's ability to provide timely and accurate
estimates of ballistic missile threats to the U.S. is eroding. This
erosion has roots both within and beyond the intelligence process
itself. The Community's capabilities in this area need to be
strengthened in terms of both resources and methodology.
* The warning times the U.S. can expect of new, threatening ballistic
missile deployments are being reduced. Under some plausible
scenarios--including re-basing or transfer of operational missiles,
sea- and air-launch options, shortened development programs that might
include testing in a third country, or some combination of these--the
U.S. might well have little or no warning before operational
deployment.
Therefore, we unanimously recommend that U.S. analyses, practices and
policies that depend on expectations of extended warning of deployment be
reviewed and, as appropriate, revised to reflect the reality of an
environment in which there may be little or no warning.
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/missile/rumsfeld/execsum.htm