Ziad Daoud Explains How War with Iran Will Reshape the Gulf

“If you have a root out of the Strait of Hormos, you're probably insulated and you are in a better position than otherwise. I think now Saudi Arabia is probably making more money out of all exports compared to the pre war periods simply because they have that pipeline that goes from the east of the country to the Red Sea. If you think about it, Saudi Arabia exports thirty percent less now, but all processes are up by a lot more.”

“This is not the first time that the US security umbrella disappoints the Gulf. This is one episode out of several. There's this current one which is probably the biggest. There was an episode in twenty seventeen when Cutter faced a blockade from its neighbors and didn't get the US protection that it wanted. In twenty eighteen and nineteen there were attacks on energy facilities in the Gulf and the US was nowhere to be seen.”

“The defense spending will go up, one because they need to replenish on the defense systems that they've been using over the past six weeks. And second because they're realizing that the world is a far more dangerous place than it was six weeks ago. If you spend more on defense, and if your income is lower, that necessarily means that what you sent to the world in terms of capital exports will come down.”

“Given that it's controlling the Strait of Hormos, given that it actually has discovered that the weight to pressure the US and Israel is by imposing costs on the global economy via attacking the golf. That's not a safe world that the golf want to be in. Even if this current system in Iran does not survive and we have a new system, they've learned the same lesson, which is basically, if you get attacked, this is how you get out of it.”

“This war has taught us that if you have a root out of the Strait of Hormos, you're probably insulated and you are in a better position than otherwise. If you're Saudi, if you're the UAE and you have these alternative routes to Hormus, it's probably one of the better investments that you've made over the past few decades and it's paying off now. Geography is kind to you because you could do this unilaterally.”

“I haven't heard a single person saying I want to move out of Dubai permanently as a result of this war. Some people have relocated temporarily. I think some people on the margin might leave, but I haven't heard that yet. I think people who live there are going to prove to be stickier than we think. The attraction of new people is probably going to ease on the margin, but there was a long queue of people who wanted to move there.”

“You have this sort of crowding out. Do you really need multiple mega airports with multiple global airlines? Probably not. Do you need multiple megaports? Probably not. Do you need multiple financial centers? You have a financial center in Dubai, another one in Abu Dhabi, an old one in Manama, Qatar has one, Saudi has one. You probably just need one. That creates a form of cannibalization and competition.”

“The big thing that happened in Kuwait in 1990 is that they started investing less in town and sending most of their wealth abroad, and over decades that means deteriorated infrastructure. You can trace what is happening there in terms of the electricity shortages in Kuwait in twenty twenty six to an event that happened in nineteen ninety. The lessons will be deep and broad and they'll go to unexpected corners, including architecture.”