{"id":28421,"date":"2026-05-14T14:32:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/?p=28421"},"modified":"2026-05-14T14:32:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:32:22","slug":"how-severe-has-the-economic-impact-of-the-iran-war-been-for-the-gulf-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/how-severe-has-the-economic-impact-of-the-iran-war-been-for-the-gulf-states\/","title":{"rendered":"How severe has the economic impact of the Iran war been for the Gulf states?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The US and Israel\u2019s war on Iran has cast a long shadow over the Gulf. It has placed many of the economies that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regional grouping \u2013 Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia \u2013 under substantial strain, <em>says <a href=\"https:\/\/profiles.open.ac.uk\/e-rutledge\">Emilie Rutledge, Senior Lecturer in Economics, The Open University<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Since the war began in February, the World Bank has downgraded its 2026 GDP growth forecast for the region from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mees.com\/2026\/4\/17\/selected-data\/imf-world-bank-announce-sharp-downward-revisions-for-gcc-growth\/4e59ba30-3a65-11f1-b863-b5bec0cbf866\">4.4% to just 1.3%<\/a>. Some thinktanks, including Oxford Economics,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfordeconomics.com\/resource\/iran-war-set-to-push-gcc-economies-into-recession\/\">even predict that<\/a>\u00a0some GCC economies will enter recession in the second half of the year.<\/p>\n<p>However, the effects of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/topics\/us-iran-conflict-73960\">war<\/a>\u00a0have differed across the region. While the Gulf states are often viewed as a unified economic bloc bound by a shared dependence on hydrocarbons, the conflict has revealed significant differences in their economic vulnerability and resilience.<\/p>\n<p>Countries like Qatar and Kuwait have seen their oil and gas exports seriously disrupted by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have access to bypass infrastructure, have been partly able to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/what-alternatives-do-gulf-states-have-to-the-strait-of-hormuz-281805\">circumvent this limitation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/saudi-arabia-restores-full-capacity-east-west-oil-pipeline-7-million-bpd-after-2026-04-12\/\">diverted<\/a>\u00a07 million barrels of crude per day through its east-west pipeline, allowing it to export oil from Yanbu on the Red Sea. The UAE, meanwhile, has utilised a pipeline from Habshan to Fujairah to export up to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/gulfs-fragile-trade-lifeline-hangs-two-eastern-uae-ports-2026-05-06\/\">1.8 million barrels<\/a>\u00a0of oil each day from the Gulf of Oman.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-severe-has-the-economic-impact-of-the-iran-war-been-for-the-gulf-states-282629\">Read the full article on The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Picture credit: Lara Jameson on Pexels<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US and Israel\u2019s war on Iran has cast a long shadow over the Gulf. It has placed many of the economies that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regional grouping \u2013 Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia \u2013 under substantial strain, says Emilie Rutledge, Senior Lecturer in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":28235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15],"tags":[1525,1640,2200],"class_list":["post-28421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-social-sciences","category-society-politics","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-the-conversation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28421"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28425,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28421\/revisions\/28425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}