Access to key Gulf container ports including Jebel Ali, Khalifa Port, Dammam, and ports in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait is currently blocked, with vessel crossings through the Strait of Hormuz down by an estimated 88–100%. Countries across the Arabian Peninsula rely heavily on containerised food imports moving through UAE hubs to supply more than 50 million people in a region with minimal agriculture and over 90% food import dependence.
Marine Traffic data shows that 49 container ships that had listed Jebel Ali as their next port on February 28 are still outside the Persian Gulf, representing 329,661 TEU of capacity. Of these, 18 vessels still list Jebel Ali as their next destination, while 31 have already diverted, including to Sohar in Oman and to the UAE’s eastern ports of Khor Fakkan and Fujairah. A broader regional snapshot indicates that 53 vessels have diverted so far, while others are still heading toward the Strait or waiting outside to enter, meaning routing decisions could still change quickly as the situation evolves. In a further sign of disruption, MSC — the world’s largest container carrier — has announced an “end of voyage” declaration for shipments bound for Arabian Gulf destinations.
Dubai’s CIA Hub and Money-Laundering Paradise Collapses
They paralyzed the port of Jebel Ali, which is one of the largest cargo ports on the planet, and they paralyzed Dubai Airport, so Dubai as a business model is dead and is not going to recover. And they attacked CIA cells in Dubai. Everybody knows there are CIA cells in Dubai. I saw them myself years ago during the Taliban era. Dubai is not a country to start with or part of an emirate. Dubai is an enormous special free zone, tax-free, offering immense money-laundering opportunities and, until today, safety and security. This has totally collapsed. They focused on Dubai specifically because it’s one of the key nodes of US intel in the whole of West Asia.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline targeted by the Iranian missiles
Iran is now hitting oil infrastructure. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline — running through Georgian territory, carrying Azerbaijani crude across the Caucasus to the Turkish Mediterranean coast, has been struck by drones. That pipeline supplies 30% of Israel’s oil.
Iran didn’t close the Strait and stop there. It is now methodically severing every energy artery feeding the coalition that bombed it — working outward from the Gulf, across the region, into the Caucasus, toward the Mediterranean. This is beyond retaliation. This is a calculated siege.
Iran’s strategy is rationing — carefully escalating energy pain in sequence, working outward from the Strait to Gulf infrastructure to Caucasian pipelines, each strike a calculated increment designed to make the economic cost of continuing unbearable before Washington runs out of things to bomb. “We haven’t seen the peak of it — we haven’t seen the worst of what could happen,” said Iman Nasseri, Managing Director for the Middle East at FGE, warning that sustained attacks on production fields and pipelines would push oil well into the $90-$100 range. Nasseri is being conservative.
The next logical Iranian moves are already visible in the architecture of what they haven’t hit yet — the Saudi East-West pipeline that bypasses Hormuz, Iraq’s offshore loading platforms in Iranian territorial waters that handle 3.5 million barrels a day, and the Abqaiq processing hub that handles the majority of Saudi crude before it reaches any export terminal. Hit those in sequence, and no strategic petroleum reserve on earth covers the gap. Iran has been under sanctions for forty years and its economy has already absorbed the worst the global financial system can deliver — the countries now watching their refineries burn and their LNG terminals go offline have not, and Tehran knows exactly how long each of them can hold before the phone calls to Washington start demanding an exit.
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