Georgetown University in Qatar

Launching The CIRS Long View: Understanding Regional Affairs. Our first episode unpacks the deep-rooted complexities of the US–Israeli war on Iran, with expert insights from Mehran Kamrava. @GUQatar Watch: youtu.be/srY4Ggoqpy4?si…

Join us for a pivotal discussion on “The Day After the War: Gulf Energy, Maritime Chokepoints, and the Reshaping of Global Markets,” sponsored by Gulf Times and the @BakerInstitute for Public Policy. “Gulf Times believes that its mission goes beyond reporting the news to fostering intellectual enrichment and envisioning a better future, through meaningful dialogue that brings together experts and specialists, contributing to shaping an informed public awareness and enhancing public understanding.” 📅 Date: 26/03/2026 ⏰ Time: 8:00–9:00 AM CT (4:00–5:00 PM Doha time) Featuring insights from leading experts and industry specialists. @almedaihki2022 @AidaAraissi @Dr_Ulrichsen @jimkrane @Ken_Medlock @RoryDavidMiller In partnership with: @BilateralChmbr , @GUQatar , @QatarPressC , and the @ME_Council . Register here: @796c44f2-31d5-4c03-a816-25d53a636339" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">events.teams.microsoft.com/event/69176359…

I was invited by @AJEnglish to offer my analysis of what the recent elections in France and Slovenia, plus Meloni's referendum defeat in Italy, actually tell us about the state of the far right in Europe. Thanks to @nilsadler1 for the questions and his analytically sharp write-up. Good to share the page with @broderly, @jacobin's Europe editor, who dissects European politics with a keen eye. The short version: We need to think carefully about the difference between tactical wins and structural trends. The far right can be beaten in specific contests, but the structural conditions driving its rise haven't changed. What we're seeing is a slowing of momentum, not a reversal. Smart alliances and tactical discipline win battles. They don't win the war unless pro-democracy forces offer something more than "we're not the far right." I break down the difference between short-term electoral oscillations and the deeper structural crisis, what I call "triple devaluation," the simultaneous erosion of economic security, cultural standing, and political voice, that keeps feeding the illiberal pendulum across the continent. A personal "milestone" from my logbook of nice firsts: the analysis has also been translated into Indonesian. 👉English: aljazeera.com/features/2026/… 👉Indonesian: bisnisupdate.com/luar-negeri/se… #FarRight #Europe #illiberalism #democracy @GUQatar

@UNUCRIS 25 years of thinking globally, regionally, and boldly. Proud to have worked and contributed to the volumes: Essays on Global Regionalism — a landmark volume marking the 25th anniversary of @UNUCRIS, bringing together global voices on how regions are shaping our world.

Wishing our community a peaceful and prosperous Eid. May the spirit of this day inspire kindness and bring abundant blessings to you and your families. #EidMubarak

I spent the last 24 hours digging into the economic impact of the Iran war. Here's what I found (brace for a long post): The Hormuz Shock: Economic Repercussions of the Iran War. Key insights: 👉Optimistic scenario: War ends within two weeks. This is painful but might be still manageable in advanced economies. However, even the record release of 400 million barrels of oil did not calm markets. 👉Pessimistic scenario: Strait of Hormuz stays closed past March: massive global inflationary pressure and recession, a 1970s-style stagflation becomes likelier day by day. 👉Biggest economic victims outside Iran: Iraq and Lebanon. Energy and financial crisis in many Global South countries is already imminent. 👉Gulf countries will weather the storm in the short term, but their diversification plans were built on the image of stability, and that image received a blow. 👉Biggest economic winner so far is Russia, but US arms manufacturers and LNG exporters also profit through higher LNG prices. Staring Into the Abyss Twelve days into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, the global economy is experiencing its most severe supply-chain disruption since the 1973 oil embargo. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has removed not just a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG from the market, but a third of global fertilizer exports, nearly a quarter of the world’s aluminum outside China, and a third of global helium production, a vital component in semiconductor manufacturing. We are not only talking about an energy crisis in the conventional sense. We are looking at the making of a global commodity shock transmitting simultaneously through energy, industrial, agricultural, and chemical supply chains. These are ingredients for an inflationary perfect storm. Every major energy crisis of the past half-century has been geopolitically driven: 1973, 1979, 1990, 2022, and now 2026. What distinguishes the current shock from its predecessors is its breadth. In 1973, it was oil. In 2022, the disruption was primarily gas. In 2026, the chokepoint disrupts a range of commodities at once. We are not in a major crisis scenario yet, though we’re approaching it rapidly. The Most Recent Predictions The economic trajectory depends almost entirely on how long the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. We can identify two scenarios, and the window for the optimistic one is narrowing fast. Optimistic scenario: If the war ends within one to two weeks, not dragging beyond March, and Hormuz begins reopening at the latest by early April, the economic damage is contained, at least for advanced economies, though Global South countries might still suffer. Based on existing research on energy price shocks, this scenario would shave half a percentage point off global growth and add up to one percentage point to global inflation. Reserves exist in the system, winter has just ended, and there is no immediate gas crunch in Europe. In this scenario, a Goldman Sachs report released on March 11 predicts oil averaging roughly $100 per barrel through March and April. On gas, Goldman projects the European benchmark price (TTF) reaching €55–74 per megawatt-hour, which is very painful but manageable, roughly the level that triggered demand responses during the 2022 crisis. Summer gas storage refilling becomes more expensive but feasible. Even in this best case, however, the effects outlast the war: shut-in oilfields take weeks to restart, damaged infrastructure at Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex and Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura needs physical repair, and gas prices remain elevated for months, with the benchmark gas price lower floor shifting permanently upward from the pre-war €25–30 range to €45–55. This means elevated gas prices throughout energy-importing countries. As of March 12, the optimistic scenario’s window is shrinking. Brent surged ten percent back above $101 overnight, despite the IEA’s record reserve release the previous day. Two tankers were attacked in Iraqi waters. Oman cleared all ships from its key export terminal as the country’s oil depots were hit. Hundreds of tankers are stranded on both sides of the strait, we no safe passage at sight. Pessimistic scenario: If the Strait remains closed beyond March, the economic disruption gets out of hand. Recession in Europe and Japan, severe slowdown in the US, China and India, and deep crisis across the energy-importing Global South. Goldman’s modeling suggests benchmark oil price (Brent) reaching $150 per barrel as inventories hit critically low levels. The gas dimension makes this scenario even more dangerous. Industry-related analysts predict European gas prices reaching €85–92 per megawatt-hour under a prolonged ninety-day closure. A Bank of America analyst calculates that each month of lost Gulf LNG supply removes approximately ten percent of total European gas storage, meaning ten weeks of disruption could push first-quarter 2027 gas prices above the 2022 highs. Goldman Sachs also warns that a disruption lasting more than two months would push European gas above €100 per megawatt-hour, at which point industrial demand begins shutting down across the continent. At $150 oil combined with gas at €85–100+, we’re entering major economic crisis terrain. Research consistently shows that fossil price spikes of fifty percent or more above trend have almost always preceded recessions, and at $150 we would be well past double that threshold. The global economy is already weakened by tariff wars and post-pandemic fragility, leaving far less cushion than usual. A Historic Release of Oil Reserves The International Energy Agency's decision on March 11 to release 400 million barrels of oil from member countries' strategic reserves represents the largest emergency intervention in the agency’s fifty-two-year history. It represents roughly a quarter of total IEA strategic reserves and signals the depth of governmental alarm. The market calm it was designed to produce lasted approximately twelve hours. By the following morning, Brent was back above $100. Three limitations deserve emphasis. First, strategic reserves are a psychological instrument, and psychology breaks down when the physical disruption is accelerating rather than stabilizing. There is no overland alternative to oil shipping through the Strait. Saudi Arabia can divert some crude through the East-West pipeline to the Red Sea, but at a fraction of Hormuz’s capacity. Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar have no such option. Second, there is a logistic mismatch. The world is losing over twenty million barrels per day through the Hormuz closure, but IEA stock releases have historically never exceeded approximately two million barrels per day. The reserves therefore only provide a long-term supplement; they cannot replace Gulf flows. Third, and critically, the reserve release is for oil only. It does nothing for gas, LNG, fertilizers, aluminum, or petrochemicals. The oil market receives psychological intervention; every other disrupted commodity market is on its own. The Unintended Beneficiary: Russia European Council president António Costa stated it with unusual bluntness: “So far, there is only one winner in this war: Russia. It gains new resources to finance its war against Ukraine as energy prices rise.” Russian crude is now selling at approximately $90 per barrel, up from roughly $50 before the war. The United States has already granted India a thirty-day waiver to purchase stranded Russian oil at sea. Sanctions enforcement is loosening under the pressure of the price spike. The structural irony is difficult to overstate. The United States launched this war partly to reshape the Middle Eastern balance of power, but the immediate economic beneficiary is Moscow. To defend against Iran’s economic weapon (the Hormuz closure) Washington is loosening its own economic weapon against Russia. The two geopolitical objectives are in direct contradiction. The political consequences within Europe are already visible. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has written to EU leaders demanding that sanctions on Russian energy be suspended. Slovakia’s Robert Fico has echoed similar rhetoric. Putin is already threatening to cut remaining gas supplies before Europe’s own phase-out deadline, attempting to weaponize the crisis. If sanctions are not enforced, Russia replenishes its war budget, which could fundamentally alter the Ukraine war dynamics. It’s worth noting that the United States is not a straightforward loser either. While American consumers will face rising fuel costs, the country’s LNG exporters stand to profit handsomely as Europe and Asia scramble for non-Gulf supply, and the defense industry is experiencing a surge in demand as the US and Israeli military refill their depleted munitions and Gulf states also rush to replenish their missile stocks and upgrade air defenses. Impact on Europe European officials have insisted that the continent is better positioned than during the 2022 energy crisis, having diversified supply sources and built new LNG infrastructure. This is partly true and partly complacent. The upside: Germany built floating LNG terminals in record time after 2022, supply chains are more diversified, gas consumption has fallen, and renewables, especially solar in southern Europe, are more prominent. Direct EU dependence on the Middle East is limited. The G7 and IEA coordination this time has been faster and more decisive. The risks: Europe entered 2026 with gas storage at critically low levels. Germany and France are at thirty percent, the Netherlands at twenty-three percent. This is the worst starting position in years, precisely at the beginning of the season when storage must be refilled. The EU has a legal obligation to reach eighty percent capacity by November. If Qatari cargoes remain offline and Asian buyers outbid Europe for available LNG, that eighty-percent target becomes extremely difficult to reach, and gas prices are bound to skyrocket. The macroeconomic context compounds the difficulty. In 2022, the European Central Bank could raise rates aggressively because growth was still recovering from the pandemic. Now Europe faces an energy shock on top of American trade war, with already sluggish growth. Before the war, the ECB was worried about inflation undershooting its two-percent target. The war has inverted the entire calculus overnight. Rate cuts are off the table; hikes become likely if oil stays above $100. The next ECB meeting on March 18 will be critical. ECB President Christine Lagarde has already signaled that the bank will “do everything necessary to keep inflation under control.” If that means a rate hike, it could freeze Europe’s fragile economy. Impact on the Gulf Economies For the Gulf Cooperation Council states, this crisis arrives at a uniquely inopportune moment. Their “Vision” economic diversification strategies aim to transform oil-dependent economies into hubs of aviation, tourism, finance, technology, and human capital. However, these visions are built on a single foundational premise: the perception of stability. The attacks on Gulf countries attacked that premise too. In the short term, GCC economies face a counterintuitive problem: global oil prices are elevated, which should mean revenue windfalls, but they cannot export because the Strait is closed and domestic storage is filling. They are experiencing the costs of a war economy without the windfall that high prices would normally deliver. According to the Financial Times, several Gulf states are already reviewing their Western investment commitments and exploring force majeure clauses in existing contracts to alleviate anticipated economic strain. In the medium term, the costs of restarting damaged and shuttered infrastructure will be substantial. Qatar’s energy minister warned that restoring LNG production could take weeks or months even after the conflict ends. Aluminum smelters, which depend on imported alumina arriving by sea through the Strait, typically hold only three to four weeks of feedstock inventory; prolonged closure means production shutdowns that take up to a year to fully reverse. Airspace closures have grounded airline fleets across the region. These are the world’s biggest aviation hubs; it will take months to clear the backlog. The long-term damage may be reputational, and therefore structural. When Amazon Web Services data centers are hit by drone shrapnel, when ports are burning, when hotels are struck by Iranian missiles, these are not just temporary inconveniences. They alter the region’s perception. GCC countries have worked hard to attract foreign investors, multinational corporations, and a global talent pool projecting themselves as oases of modernity in a desert of instability. The big question is how to recreate that image. Middle East Economic Damage Iraq is arguably the worst-hit country outside Iran itself. Oil production has plunged roughly sixty percent, because tankers simply cannot load at the country’s ports. Iraq exports almost all of its oil through the Strait of Hormuz; it has essentially no alternative route. Oil accounts for close to fifty percent of GDP and ninety-nine percent of total exports. Unlike Saudi Arabia or the UAE, Iraq has no sovereign wealth fund and no budgetary rules for managing oil revenues. The oil shutdown costs the country an estimated $128 million per day. An analyst at the Royal United Services Institute warned that a prolonged suspension of oil revenues and any delay in paying public-sector salaries could “turn the country into a powder keg.” Compounding the catastrophe, Iraq imports more than thirty percent of its electricity generation from Iranian gas, and Iran’s own energy infrastructure is being systematically destroyed. Iraq faces an energy import crisis and an energy export crisis simultaneously, without having fired a single shot. Lebanon, already in economic collapse, is another major casualty of this crisis. The country now faces renewed Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets, destroying whatever fragile stabilization had taken hold. Egypt’s president declared a “state of near-emergency” citing growing inflation. The Suez Canal accounts for roughly fifteen percent of the country’s foreign currency receipts, and transit revenues have still not recovered from the Red Sea crisis. Higher oil import bills on top of lost canal revenue represent a fiscal nightmare for a country already under IMF supervision. Jordan’s three economic pillars (tourism, phosphate exports, and trade through the Port of Aqaba) have been serially disrupted by successive crises since COVID-19. The Global South: Already In Crisis When analysts describe the optimistic scenario as “contained and manageable,” they mean manageable for rich countries. For much of the developing world, the crisis is already acute. Pakistan imports forty percent of its energy and relies heavily on Qatari LNG that has been completely cut off. Long queues have formed at fuel stations as supplies dwindle. Pakistan’s central bank will likely have to raise interest rates despite economic fragility; the worst of both worlds. India, which sources half its crude imports from the Gulf, has more than 400,000 metric tons of basmati rice stuck at ports because shipping lanes are disrupted. The Philippines sources ninety-six percent of its oil from the Gulf; its currency is depreciating and oil supply is severely affected. Pacific Island states spend five to fifteen percent of GDP on energy imports; for them, even a temporary spike at $100 per barrel is an existential budget crisis. Across Africa, Bloomberg estimates that every twenty-dollar-per-barrel increase in oil prices reduces South Africa’s GDP by roughly one percent and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s by approximately three percent. The crisis is not abstract. In India, restaurants are warning of possible shutdowns as the government redirects gas supplies to households. Thailand has suspended overseas travel for civil servants and instructed them to take stairs rather than elevators to conserve energy. The Philippines has introduced a temporary four-day work week for some government agencies. Vietnam is encouraging people to work from home. This is what “contained and manageable” looks like outside the advanced economies, twelve days into a conflict that may not end for weeks. The compounding mechanism makes the Global South’s position particularly precarious. Energy prices spike, currencies depreciate against the dollar as investors flee to safe havens, and dollar-denominated energy imports become even more expensive in local-currency terms: a vicious cycle. Financially fragile countries like Laos, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh face simultaneous capital flight and renewed debt distress. The fertilizer-to-food transmission channel adds another layer: a third of global fertilizer exports come from the Gulf shipped through the Strait. If farmers cannot afford fertilizer, yields drop and food prices spike months later. The 2008 and 2010–11 food price shocks contributed directly to political instability across the Middle East and North Africa. The distributional asymmetry is the point that deserves the sharpest emphasis. The countries that initiated this conflict are the most insulated from its economic consequences. The United States, now a modest net energy exporter thanks to the shale revolution, even benefits slightly from higher global energy prices in aggregate. The poorest, most energy-import-dependent countries that had no voice in the decision to go to war bear the heaviest costs. This asymmetry is the structural injustice at the heart of every geopolitically driven energy crisis since 1973. The pain is distributed in inverse proportion to the power to inflict it. #Iran #Crisis #Recession #Inflation @GUQatar

Some thoughts on the response of Gulf states to the current crisis from a strategic perspective. Thanks for invite @johnamble & @WarInstitute @SmallStates_GUQ @GUQatar @guqdean

Happy to give my brief thoughts on the events of the last week @GUQatar @guqdean @SmallStates_GUQ

Amidst the current madness – allow me to take you back to some real scholarship: *Journal of Arabian Studies* 15.2 ("December 2025") will soon be out, but most of its articles have been coming out individually already since December. So I wanted to give you a foretaste! 1/4

This event has been cancelled.

Join us for CIRS Monthly Dialogue "What Arab Authoritarianism Tells Us About the World" on March 9th at Georgetown University in Qatar in collaboration with @IAS_NUQ RSVP through the link. cirs.rsvpify.com

When Waad Al-Maadeed graduated from university last year, she wasn’t just top of her class at Georgetown University in Qatar, her academic career earned her the top honour for all of Qatar. thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/23/02/…

H.E. Kolinda Grabar Kitarović delivers a lecture on “Public Diplomacy and Security Alliances,” followed by a discussion moderated by Asst. Prof. Lynda Iroulo. Former President of Croatia (2015–2020), she previously served as Croatia’s Ambassador to the U.S. and as Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy at NATO—the first woman to hold the role. guq.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/public-d…

Wishing you a month of peace and prosperity. Ramadan Kareem! 🌙

Congratulations to Waad Al-Maadeed on winning the Qatar Education Excellence Award, presented by the Emir on Sunday. It was my pleasure to mentor Waad’s Honors Thesis, “Sport as a Foreign Policy Tool: The FIFA World Cup 2022 and Qatar–Saudi Bilateral Relations” @GUQatar.

Happening now ⁦@GUQatar⁩ as part of the Lusail Museum Conversations

Excited to welcome award-winning novelist Kiran Desai to the Qalam series! In conversation with Kamila Shamsie, we’ll explore Kiran’s legendary career, from The Inheritance of Loss to her 2025 Booker-shortlisted The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. RSVP: guq.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/kiran-de…

Join us for an exclusive performance by singer-songwriter Dana Salah! From collaborating with the minds behind Halsey and B.o.B to being featured in Billboard, Dana is bringing her global sound to our stage. Thursday, Feb 12 @ 6 PM Experience the blend of vintage Arab soul and modern pop. See you there! guq.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/dana-sal…

Happening today!!