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I got a culture war hot take for ya'll in the dying hours of this thread while I marinate infront of a screen on account of I fell off a fucking ladder and rolled my ankle like a QUA-SAUN'T:
Qualification before I even start: obviously its bad if anyone is killed, and I would prefer if none of this happened, or if it did happen it stayed as geographically isolated as possible, but given that it hasn't:
I am not fan of Iran or it's ruling class, but if I had to pick between them and the gulf states, I'd pick them every time. The gulf states are full of degenerate lazy assholes, run by people who are dumb as shit outside their little lanes, ruling over people who are parasitic insects on the global economy, and I don't give a shit what happens to them or anyone who chooses to live there. It is the worst place I have ever been payed to go, I would rather go back to bucharest and get chased down a half finished bridge by stray dogs then spend another hour in Dubai, and anyone who likes it has no taste; a crime worse than being a bastard.
What the fuck is even the point of these places? At least Switzerland and Singapore have some class as they wash your blood money; I just don't want to hear another dude talk about how nice his place in dubai is. Bitch, Dubai is rich person Mcdonalds, be a real man and get you a place in Macau and another in Monaco and a third in Sun Valley.
They trade oil for a high standard of living, and Dubai banks the oil money locally.
Now, to be clear, Iran is in some ways morally superior to these countries- at least the locals do actual work instead of abusing indentured servants, for example, and the gulf states don't have stellar human rights records either. But let's not sugarcoat the Iranian regime; they're fucking retards whose sine qua non is being enemies of America, who have seemingly failed at both their good governance and their religious goals. The same cannot be said for the gulf states.
Literally, the gulf states are the bull case for monarchy. You know what most Arabs do when they discover an ocean of oil? Have a civil war and let the winner squander the money on terrorism, with no benefit to the people. Saudi citizens might be lazy fucks, but they don't do that. Saudi Arabia is a developed country with a high standard of living, that's managed to avoid sanctions. Same for Qatar, Kuwait, etc. Iran hasn't had a civil war recently, but you know what they spend their oil money on? 'Cause it ain't good governance. They're out of running water in the capital. That's very unlikely in Riyadh despite supplying water to it being a harder problem. The Gulf Monarchies are basically achieving both their human and religious goals, even if they don't get all their foreign policy goals and have poor human rights records. Yes, they cheated by using oil money, but this is not a foolproof loophole- just ask Nigeria, Venezuela, Libya, Iraq, etc. Does the median petrostate benefit the people at all? I guess Russia's oil money enables a military machine that provides economic stimulus.
For avoiding the petrostate trap, hats off to the gulf Arabs. This is actually a hard problem and they solved it.
The Gulf Arabs are absolutely in the petrostate trap. They don't make things, they just function as a shady tax haven and cheap-energy zone for certain industries. They have ambitions in AI, not in making AI models but buying GPUs made by industrious countries, hosting AI models made by clever companies, exploiting their cheap energy.
The Gulf buys US weapons, they buy Chinese weapons, they buy (or attempt to buy) US protection. Who makes the actual oil equipment and drills? Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Samsung... The Saudis have some Chinese made ballistic missiles waiting for Pakistani nuclear bombs they think they paid for.
Iran makes their own oil equipment. Iran's MAPNA Group makes gas power plants at world standards. They are trying to export technology, not just oil. Their oil industry has problems, as you would expect given sanctions. But it is their oil industry and not imported oil industry.
Iran makes things, they build their own missiles, drones and weapons. They develop their own strategies to take advantage of their enemies' weaknesses. Their proxies do a good job.
The UAE's proxies in Sudan haven't covered themselves in glory and they're merely fighting Sudan, not exactly a tough opponent. The Saudi army has all this fancy US gear. And how do they perform against the Houthis? They got wrecked by the Houthis.
Iran is far superior to the Gulf Monarchies in governance. They may be an enemy of the US but they are not stupid. There's a huge power gap between Iran and Turkey and Pakistan at the top end of the Islamic world, then there are the Gulf monarchies and below them assorted Arab riff-raff. The Gulf states don't know how to fight or do anything correctly. Their manifest impotence in this war is obvious, America has to do all the fighting for them.
Their land mostly sucks. There is a reason the Arab states never developed much in terms of civilization. It’s because most of its desert and not useful to develop agriculture and then more. Sort of like Alaska in some ways.
Just to distinguish, the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates are canonically the breadbaskets of the ancient world and are largely Arab.
The Arab States in the Gulf, not so much.
Are they? Egyptians are pretty separate to Arabs especially the vintage that made Egypt a big deal initially. That's like saying the Byzantines were Turks.
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This is a truly bizarre take without more elaboration.
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