Hello and welcome to Broinomics.

Now, in this episode, I thought I'd do something different

because I've been talking about the Iran War a lot.

We're going to talk about the wider region

as it is affected by the Iran War.

And to help me with that, I've got our geopolitics expert, Fores Moudad.

Thank you for coming on.

My pleasure always.

Thank you.

So, first caveat, this is being recorded on whatever it is, Thursday morning, goes out on Tuesday.

So it's vaguely possible that over the weekend, it all gets wrapped up, goes in the wind column for somebody,

and it's all behind us. I feel fairly safe, dedicating an hour of mine and yours time

and a couple of hours of the editors, or the assumption that it probably won't be.

There is some interesting news, though. Apparently Quatar have paid $6 billion in order to be able to traverse the straits.

I think that that's credible, but too low, honestly.

Well, the other thing that gets me is it's just money, it's not, and we will remove U.S. bases.

Yes, exactly. The Qataris have been making noises about neutralizing themselves from this

war, which presupposes the removal of the Adelaide Air Base. The problem with that is that's

the only guarantee of Qatari independence.

In 1997, the Saudis almost invaded.

In 2017, the Saudis and the Emirati is almost invaded.

And the reason that base exists is to prevent that eventuality. And so that's a problem for Qatar.

...