Has the US-Iran conflict reduced the appeal of Gulf expat life?

Istanbul – Life in the Gulf was good, until it was not.

For seven years, Brett, his wife and their three children enjoyed the safety and perks of living as expatriates in the Arabian Peninsula. They had moved to Doha from Canada, where Brett’s physician wife was “getting crazy” with work and lacked family time. She first interviewed for jobs in the United Arab Emirates but the family preferred the smaller and quieter Qatar.

The 40-something had never been to the Gulf but liked it immediately. The self-described stay-at-home parent and “white guy from a small town” found it easy to make friends. He even volunteered with Arab mums for school activities.

“Qatar is very safe day to day and has lots to do for families” said Brett, who spoke anonymously for fear of jeopardising the status of his wife and children.

“The kids were in school and did extra activities after school. My life was pretty much chasing them around and doing the day-to-day duties to keep a family running.”

Then the US-Iran war started. On March 2, when Iran began attacking energy infrastructure and US military installations in Qatar with drone swarms and ballistic missiles, both his children were in school.

Brett rushed them home immediately. “Not long after we arrived home, we started hearing interceptions (against incoming missiles),” he said. “We had alerts to tell us to stay indoors and then follow up when it was safe to go out again.”

The family obtained Saudi visas in the event they needed to escape via the Qatari peninsula’s sole connection to the mainland. They packed an emergency bag with essential documents. They bought a little extra food and water “just in case”. When the airport reopened, Brett took the kids to Germany for a month to stay with friends, returning when in-person school resumed.

Though he never felt immediately at risk, it was unsettling, he said. Even before the conflict, the family was already considering a move from Qatar, and now they have decided to leave for good.

“I think volatility is in the region,” he said. “We came knowing that.”

For years, expatriates from across the Middle East, Asia and the West have been pouring into the gleaming Persian Gulf cities such as Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi, as well as Riyadh, Manama and Kuwait City.

In addition to higher salaries and low or non-existent taxes, they were also drawn by the exceptional safety and predictability these cities offered in an otherwise tumultuous region.

No longer a safe haven

The war has fundamentally changed the image of the Gulf as a safe haven.

French-Algerian scholar Dalia Ghanem described “the sheer cognitive dissonance of the moment” when interceptors began blowing up ballistic missiles above sleek residential towers.

“You cannot host major military infrastructure and remain a neutral hub once a high-intensity war begins,” she told The Straits Times in an interview.

Qatar has a longstanding defence partnership with the US, which operates its largest military base in the Middle East at the Al Udeid Air Base, south-west of Doha.

Dr Ghanem was fired from her job at a Doha think-tank four days after publishing a widely circulated essay on the end of the Gulf’s exceptional status in the Middle East. Her employer said she was let go because of “restructuring”.

In the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait, there were numerous examples of people being fired, deported or even stripped of their citizenship for posting videos of missile or drone damage, or being of a sect or nationality considered suspect.

Region faces a negative economic outlook

Business has slowed. Traffic at Dubai’s international airport hit a record 95.2 million arrivals in 2025, then declined by 21 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, according to official data.

The Wall Street Journal cited a report by the Moody’s monitoring and bond rating service predicting that hotel occupancy rates in Dubai would fall from 80 per cent to 10 per cent in the second quarter of 2026.

The World Bank has revised its projections for 2026 gross domestic product growth in the Gulf from 3.1 per cent to 1.3 per cent. Oxford Economics predicted that the region could fall into recession in 2026.

Amid the sobering predictions, efforts are being made by boosters of the Gulf close to the leadership to burnish the region’s reputation.

Mr Sultan Alali, an Abu Dhabi-based Emirati sports journalist, said in an interview: “People thought the war would slow the UAE down. The atmosphere became more strategic and security-focused, but Dubai and Abu Dhabi became even bigger, busier and more influential.”

In contrast, residents continue to report setbacks, and visitor numbers are dwindling. Hotels are reporting record-low booking rates. Tourism makes up around 14 per cent of the UAE’s economy.

At one hotel complex in Doha, all but five of 23 food establishments have shuttered, said a person familiar with the matter.

News reports from Dubai and Abu Dhabi describe empty airport terminals and shopping malls, hotels restricting guests to certain floors to reduce costs, and workers on the lower rungs of the employment ladder fearful for their jobs.

The continued Iranian seizure and US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has prolonged the crisis and delayed any potential recovery. Some restaurants in Dubai have reportedly scaled back their menus because they are unable to access certain products.

Attempts to get back to normal are having limited success, said Mr Kevin Schwartz, an Iran and Middle East scholar and deputy director and research fellow at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, who lives in the Gulf.

“Everything is open. School is no longer online. People are not leaving. But they’re scaling things back.”

War’s varied impact across the region

Complicating the picture and exacerbating the political divisions within the once-united Gulf bloc is the uneven impact of the war and continuing blockade.

While the UAE and Oman can still access the open seas via the Gulf of Oman ports that bypass the Strait of Hormuz, and Saudi Arabia has the entire Red Sea coast, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain have no such options.

In some parts of the Middle East, the war appears to have had almost no impact.

“Personally, my life has not changed at all,” Mr Wajdi Alquliti, a calligrapher based in Jeddah, on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, far from the war, said in an interview with ST.

“Daily life in Saudi Arabia continues very normally. People still go to work, travel, attend events, restaurants are full, business is active, and large international events continue to happen without interruption.”

Saudi Arabia is also no stranger to conflict, having faced drone and missile attacks in recent years during its war against Yemen’s Houthis. “Over time, people developed confidence in the state’s ability to manage these threats effectively,” he said.

Two-and-a-half months into the Iran war, and despite warnings of a major shift, long-time Gulf residents and nationals are seemingly taking the latest troubles in their stride.

The countries are not nearly as fragile or unaccustomed to outbreaks of chaos as some might think, they say. They cite the numerous crises the region has endured, including the 1980s tanker war between Iran and Iraq, the US wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, the conflict with the Houthis, and a steady stream of terrorist attacks and assassinations.

Even the ongoing bickering between the Gulf states, including over security matters and relations with Israel and Iran, is nothing new, and not nearly as severe as the blockade imposed on Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt from 2017 to 2021.

Mr Alali, the sports journalist, said: “Despite disagreements at times, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar remain deeply connected through trade, security and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) economy worth over US$2 trillion (S$2.6 trillion). For most people, regional stability matters more than temporary tensions.”

Even though Brett and his family are leaving the Gulf, he said most of his friends are staying put. “I know some that are still very nervous,” he said. “But I feel this will run its course and things will improve in the Gulf.”

Some even long for the relatively placid days of the recent war, complaining that the region’s ubiquitous highways have become clogged again.

“Dubai is full of traffic and crowds again,” Mr Pavel Durov, the Russian founder of messaging app Telegram and a resident of the UAE, wrote on social media platform X. “Already missing the Iranian fireworks – they helped clear the city of the easily impressed.”