Leaders | The Middle East

An energy crisis and geopolitics are creating a new-look Gulf

It will be richer, more powerful—and more volatile

Sep 22nd 2022

In eight weeks roughly 1m football fans will descend on Qatar for the World Cup, many of them travelling via neighbouring cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi. They will find a Gulf in the midst of a $3.5trn energy bonanza, courtesy of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Western politicians facing a cost-of-living crisis are once again paying homage to the royalty of the fossil-fuel economy. Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, is due to visit this week; in July President Joe Biden fist-bumped Muhammad bin Salman (mbs), the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, a country he had branded a pariah for its human-rights abuses.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Boom time in the Gulf”