IRAN SH0CKED THE WORLD AGAIN!

As Iran attacks Dubai, the tax-free haven for the global elite could see ‘catastrophic’ fallout | Fortune

The United States assembled one of the largest military deployments since the 2003 invasion of Iraq in preparation for this campaign — two carrier strike groups, vast numbers of aircraft, and essentially limitless supplies of precision munitions. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth acknowledged publicly that this was never intended to be a fair contest in terms of conventional military capability.

Iran possesses significant stocks of ballistic missiles and armed drones, but those stockpiles are finite, and after two weeks of sustained conflict, the frequency and scale of Iranian long-range strikes has been declining. In terms of conventional military exchange, the outcome has been what the asymmetry of forces would predict.

But Iran has demonstrated that it retains other options. A series of attacks on commercial tankers at sea — using projectiles and naval drones that are harder to detect and intercept than conventional missiles — has signaled that Iran intends to impose costs through means that do not require matching American or Israeli firepower. These methods are relatively inexpensive to deploy, difficult to fully defend against, and highly effective at disrupting the economic activity that the United States and its allies depend on.

That particular form of retaliation may prove more consequential in the long run than any direct military exchange.

The Strait of Hormuz and the Global Economy

The economic consequences of this conflict have radiated outward with a speed and breadth that appears to have caught the White House off guard.

The Strait of Hormuz — a narrow passage through which approximately twenty percent of the world’s daily oil supply passes — has been functionally closed to normal traffic. Alternative routing exists in theory: a Saudi pipeline to the Red Sea and a smaller route through the United Arab Emirates to the Gulf of Oman could help relieve the pressure over time. But those alternatives are not immediately adequate to replace the volume that normally flows through Hormuz, and the transition is not instantaneous.

The result has been sharp price increases across a remarkable range of commodities. Oil and natural gas prices have surged. Jet fuel costs have risen dramatically, disrupting aviation. Fertilizer prices — particularly urea, which is derived from natural gas — have increased in ways that will affect agricultural production globally. Aluminum, wheat, and a broad range of manufactured goods dependent on petrochemical inputs are all more expensive than they were before the strikes began.

In practical terms, this is already changing behavior at the government level in countries far from the conflict zone. Officials in the Philippines have moved to a four-day working week to reduce fuel consumption from commuting. Government offices in Thailand have been instructed to set air conditioning no lower than twenty-six degrees Celsius. In Myanmar, private vehicles have been restricted to alternate-day driving.

In Britain and across Europe, governments have announced measures to address what they describe as potential price gouging by energy companies. In the United States, petrol prices are rising in direct contradiction to one of President Trump’s most prominent domestic pledges.

Travel and tourism have been severely disrupted, particularly in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — both of which serve as major global aviation hubs. Dubai International Airport, which processed roughly a quarter of a million passengers daily in the first half of 2025, has been struck multiple times by Iranian drones. Tens of thousands of tourists and expatriate residents have left the region since the conflict began.

Allies Caught Off Guard

US-Israel war with Iran sends shockwaves through global business | Reuters