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Posted on 04/04/2026 10:17:25 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Sixty years ago, I first gazed out on the Strait of Hormuz from the Musandam peninsula of Oman. I was there as private secretary to my godfather, Selwyn Lloyd, who had been Britain’s foreign secretary during the Suez Crisis.
The previous evening our host, Sultan Said bin Taimur, the ruler of Oman for nearly 40 years, commented gloomily: ‘When two fish are fighting in these waters, the British are behind it.’
I estimate that I must have made at least 250 visits to the Gulf states in the intervening six decades. The key question which would surely now be asked by the ghosts of my former Middle East interlocutors – from Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan, the first president of the UAE, and the visionary Sultan Qaboos of Oman – is this: who will emerge as the real winners and losers from the present Hormuz crisis?
The Americans are already big losers in terms of reputational face and folly. The zigzags of Donald Trump’s strategic pronouncements make no sense from day to day. The bombastic boasts of the War Secretary, Pete Hegseth, have turned him into the Comical Ali of this conflict. The Pentagon’s spokesman is now saying ‘the situation is fluid’, which is hardly a convincing cry of victory after three weeks of fierce fighting.
Despite America’s errors, the Iranians are bigger losers. The Spectator’s leading article last week was right in its fierce condemnation of the horrors of the Ayatollah’s evil strategy but wrong to be sanguine about what might follow it.
The most likely outcome is Iran will be militarily and economically ruined for decades. This is a win for the Israelis, but trouble for almost everyone else. Iran itself will have a changed regime, yet possibly without real regime change. But sooner or later, whoever is in charge in Tehran will have to learn to live with the neighbours – the Gulf states, where Britain’s interests are still great.
Here, the winners and losers scoreboard is sure to prove complicated. Poor little Bahrain and arrogantly rich Qatar will go downhill as the price for their subservience to Trump’s America.
Cash-strapped but oil-rich, Saudi Arabia (‘the big enchilada’, as Nixon called it) will remain inwardly strong but outwardly more cautious. Its special relationship with the United States – effectively these days with the Trump family – has been tarnished and weakened. My Saudi friends are furious but impotent. They loathe the Iranians but will only sabre-rattle at them. The UAE has been hit harder than it admits. It has been the target of more than 2,000 Iranian missiles and drones, whose debris has damaged oil storage depots, hotels and banks. Dubai, the emirate for expatriates, is suffering a crisis of confidence. Yet despite a reverse charge of the bling brigade, it will stagger flashily on with the declining status of a lesser Monaco of the Middle East – a sunny place for shady people.
The true heart, strength and soul of the UAE is Abu Dhabi, which accounts for more than 80 per cent of the country’s land, over 90 per cent of its massive oil reserves and 40 per cent of its local Emirati population. Throughout the hostilities, my son, -William, who lives and works in Abu Dhabi, has been doing the rounds of the sheikh and merchant family majlis (coffee gatherings). He reports a robust resilience among the sons and grandsons of the region’s original Bedouin desert fighters.
Sheikh Zayed’s son, Sheikh Mohamedbin Zayed (MBZ), whom I know well, is largely the reason for the country’s relative stability. When the first Iranian missiles struck, he gave an eloquent interview, combining menace for the Iranians, compassion for the wounded, reassurance for the expatriates, gratitude to his fellow Emiratis and hope for the future. ‘The UAE is a role model,’ he said.
‘I promise everyone we will emerge stronger than before.’ If MBZ can pull off his goal of making Abu Dhabi the safest and most attractive jurisdiction in the region, his already mega-rich emirate could become the primary beneficiary of global or regional instability. Another dark horse to watch in the race for post-war success in the Gulf is Oman. Arguably the most perceptive article by an Arab author since the war began was in last week’s Economist under the headline: ‘America’s friends must help extricate it from an unlawful war.’ It was by Badr Albusaidi, Oman’s foreign minister, who mediated the last round of apparently promising nuclear talks between America and Iran.
The Albusaidis are the Kennedys of their country, occupying seven cabinet posts. But, unlike the JFKs and RFKs, the Albusaidis follow the Omani tradition of rarely putting their heads above the parapet. Why intervene now? Because for strategic, diplomatic, geographical, political and economic reasons, Oman is likely to emerge as the new jewel in the crown of tomorrow’s Gulf.
Its Switzerland-style neutrality for many years has paid off. Over the past few weeks, Iran has fired only two or three token missiles in its direction. An Omani economic boom is coming anyway thanks to the imminent completion of long-planned rail and pipeline infrastructure links to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. These have been encouraged by the new ruler Sultan Haitham, author of the government blueprint ‘Oman Vision 2040’, which aims to bring in $50 billion in foreign direct investment.
To do this, the Sultan needs help. MBZ and other Gulf leaders may need to swallow their irritation over Oman’s history of fence-sitting. But if Abu Dhabi and the Gulf Co-operation Council decide to embark on an economic reconstruction programme when hostilities cease, Oman – in co-operation with Abu Dhabi – would give tomorrow’s Gulf a great future. But be careful about such predictions. Experienced travellers in these desert sands remember what Lord Curzon said when he was foreign secretary in 1923: ‘The Arab world is a university where the student never takes his degree.’
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Those states will be lucky to still exist when this is over. If the escalation that is coming follows the threats by both sides all of the civilian infrastructure of the US allies will be demolished and their populations will shrink 90% or so due to lack of water, power, food, jobs, etc.
TDS-stricken author predicts all bad things.
What kind of cr-p sandwich is this article?
It doesn’t make sense that Oman and the UAE are any more winners than the rest.
The author just likes saying whatever Trump wants or touches must be terrible, so those who helped are terrible, too. Then he uses this lack of reasoning to say countries that didn’t go along will be so much better off. He mentions Oman and the UAE, but he forgets to mention South African, Zimbabwe, Norway, Panama, and all the other countries of the world that didn’t go along with Trump.
The whole thing is devoid of any reason. It’s just assertions that formed when the author spat bile on a page and he interpreted from that image, like a pagan soothsayer.
I wonder if the author is the same person as listed in Wikipedia?
Jonathan William Patrick Aitken (born 30 August 1942) is a British author, Church of England priest and former Conservative Party politician. Beginning his career in journalism, he was elected to Parliament in 1974 (serving until 1997), and was a member of the cabinet during John Major’s premiership from 1994 to 1995. That same year, he was accused by The Guardian of misdeeds conducted under his official government capacity. He sued the newspaper for libel in response, but the case collapsed, and he was subsequently found to have committed perjury during his trial. In 1999, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, of which he served seven months.
In 1999, DNA testing confirmed that Petrina Khashoggi, putative daughter of billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, was Aitken’s biological child, the result of an affair with Khashoggi’s wife Soraya (née Sandra Daly).
On 10 April 1995, The Guardian carried a front-page report on Aitken’s dealings with leading Saudis. The story was the result of a long investigation carried out by journalists from the newspaper and from Granada Television’s World in Action programme. The Guardian also alleged Aitken, when Minister for Defence Procurement, procured prostitutes for Arab businessmen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Aitken
BS, MS, PHD. (Look it up.)
Quit after the first self-aggrandizing, doomcasting paragraph.
Yeah.....I don’t see it that way. In fact, I don’t see any of the gulf states being diminished by this conflict. It won’t be long lasting. Either the regime in Iran will be seriously weakened (Iran was staring into the economic abyss already nevermind the catastrophic water shortages) and having their air force, navy, senior ranks, missiles and drone forces severely depleted if not completely destroyed will leave them much weaker than they were. That is if they survive at all which is far from certain.
The world’s need for fossil fuels is only growing no matter how much the Gaia worshipers hate that reality. The truth is Gaia worship is a fad/grift which has run smack dab into the brick wall of reality. Everybody looks at Europe and sees what a destructive, unsustainable folly it is. Nobody else is going to go down that path. The gul states have oil and gas to sell. They’ll be just fine.
Yes, the one and same Jonathan William Patrick Aitken!
I suspect you already guessed that.
I don’t know why people post such LSM garbage here on FR, unless the purpose is to demean FR, and am very suspicious of their motives (especially when posted without any comment from the poster).
Why post this crap? I have enough stress in my life. Seems like more and more these days, since Jim’s death, FR is getting saturated with nut cases. If you’ve got TDS go elsewhere.
I stopped reading here. Typical Brit BS artist creating convenient fantasy assessment to squirm out of making the hard decision without taking responsibility.
“It was by Badr Albusaidi, Oman’s foreign minister, who mediated the last round of apparently promising nuclear talks between America and Iran.”
“...the Gulf states, where Britain’s interests are still great...”
If Britain’s interest are so great, why is PM Starmer sitting around painting his toe nails? He is more concerned about women’s underwear fashion than the collapse of the UK. This article was submitted by an individual with severe TDS, most likely a Greta Thunberg acolyte.
You put to writing my thoughts as I was reading his rag writings!
It’s The Spectator. Might be one step less stupid than The Globe. Bathroom reading for Elites. Ass-wipe for the rest of us.
I think the author has the problem so many westerners have had, and the cause of so much failed western Middle East diplomacy - they listen to their Arab friends and they believe what those friends believe about themselves.
He is a pompous Brit of the upper classes who appears to be ignoring the mess his own country has devolved into where London is so unsafe you can’t wear a pricey watch on the street.
.
“ The zigzags of Donald Trump’s strategic pronouncements make no sense from day to day. ”
That is the strategy, milksop.
Would you rather he precisely broadcast every military op and stick to it? That’s as silly as the British wearing red and marching in straight lines.
EC
The author seems to be basically just plain ignorant.
All that is happening is the result of the Abraham Accords and the Negev Summit. All the Mideast combined by the previously formed coalitions are the beneficiaries.
Do not understand why UAE and Oman never stepped up to exert some control and coordination of traffic through the Strait
What kind of cr-p sandwich is this article?...
...The whole thing is devoid of any reason....
His AI large language model is limited to the twisted far left sources of information
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