The PR risks companies face as Middle East tensions escalate

The rise of hostilities in the Middle East isn’t just a regional conflict. For companies with employees, infrastructure or supply chains in the region, it presents immediate operational risks and a complex communications challenge.

The U.S. and Israel launched a series of coordinated strikes against Iranian leadership and military infrastructure last weekend, triggering retaliatory attacks across the region, including strikes against Israel and U.S. allies in Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE and Saudia Arabia.

The U.S. State Department evacuated non-essential personnel from several countries and warned Americans to avoid travel to the region.

Communicators and PR pros can expect a period of extended uncertainty and heightened operational and reputational risk.

Internal comms implications

Case in point, Amazon Web Services reported that data centers in the UAE and Bahrain were targeted by Iranian drones, causing a series of limited outages in the region.

Companies that have infrastructure in the Gulf region should prepare a communications plan in case that infrastructure gets hit, said Joe Buccino, retired Army colonel, former spokesperson for U.S. Central Command and a current Fox News military analyst.

That should also include a plan of reassurance that you’ve hardened positions or moved people and assets out of potential danger.

“Any company that has an outlay in the Gulf States has to be prepared for some kind of evacuation or shelter in place for their people there,” Buccino said.

Expect the conflict to last weeks or even months, in part because it’s not clear what the U.S. strategy is. The White House has given conflicting accounts for the strikes, ranging from heading off retaliatory strikes resulting from Israeli action to the threat of an imminent direct attack against the U.S.

Beware of reputational risks

Buccino urged companies to avoid making corporate statements about the conflict and to consider pausing routine campaigns until the situation stabilizes.

“I see these companies and a lot of these thought leaders on LinkedIn continuing to roll through their posts,” he said. “It looks tone deaf. It looks inappropriate. It looks like you’re not paying attention to the world around you. In my mind, you just lose credibility.”

In polarized geopolitical crises, corporate statements often introduce more risk than value.

“A corporate statement introduces messaging risk and opens you to criticism from one faction or the next,” Buccino said. “And anyone that has a black and white view of this, they just don’t understand the complexity involved here.”

Audit ongoing risks

Beyond immediate harm to people and regional assets, there is the risk of cyberattacks against U.S. infrastructure and potential reputational risk associated with supply chain disruption or rising energy prices.

Buccino downplayed the latter, noting that Iran’s Navy has largely been destroyed and its ballistic missile capabilities will likely soon be eliminated, thereby driving down the risk to oil trade to nearly nothing.

But an unclear military and diplomatic strategy remains a source of potential risk.

“If we send our carrier strike groups back in four, five, six weeks, there’s potential for these terror groups that Iran armed over the last 25 years to flood back in and fill the void of leadership and spread that into Kuwait, northeast Syria, Iraq,” Buccino said. “And then you’d have a regional catastrophe.”

Learn more from Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council.