The Gulf’s Postwar Playbook

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
The digital world feels more chaotic than ever. Huge data breaches, AI-threatening jobs, foreign meddling, that creeping feeling of obsolescence. It's information overload. I'm Dina Temple-Rustin, host of Click Here, from PRX and Recorded Future News.
Want to understand how we got here and how you can get ahead of it all? Listen to Click Here. We can help you make sense of all the noise, wherever you get your podcasts.

**Ravi Agrawal** (0:32)
Hi, I'm Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy's Editor-in-Chief. This is FP Live.
One of the biggest transformations of the last few decades has been the rise of the Gulf countries. Think of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. They were blessed with immense oil and gas deposits, and they've grown into economic powerhouses. They built the world's best airlines. They created cities to attract workers from around the world. They became global centers of tourism. And to secure all of those things, they relied on the United States for military backing. The Iran War has threatened all of that. So how are the Gulf monarchies rethinking their basic security and economic models? My guest this week ran US Policy in the Gulf.
That is coming up. But first, I wanted to highlight a story from a couple of weeks ago when 50,000 Moroccans broke into Ciuta, a Spanish territory. And then within a day or so, they left. What happened? Here's my read on things. First, a few basic facts. Ciuta is a city of about 84,000 people. It shares a border with Morocco, but it is mostly surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. To its north lies mainland Spain, which has been in possession of Ciuta since 1590
After those basic facts, things become less clear. Why did so many Moroccans rush to Spain? According to reporters who spoke with some of them, they heard a rumor that the border was open and they went for it. But 50,000 people? This is where it gets murkier. There are all kinds of conspiracy theories about the United States or Israel playing a hand. The basis for those theories is that the current Spanish government has a fraught relationship with both of those countries, while Morocco has been growing closer to them. But like most conspiracy theories, there is no evidence here, just vibes. So we're left with an enduring mystery. Why did tens of thousands of people rush to another country? We might never know the exact answer. The few facts we have are just not revelatory. Spain and Morocco have a pretty reasonable relationship. Geography determines a lot of it. Spain gets more legal migrants from Morocco than any other country. Spain is also Morocco's largest trading partner in Europe.
So in lieu of a proper answer, I have a few broader observations. The first is that immigration is going to remain a major flash point this century. Populations in Asia and Africa are growing just as they are declining in Europe and North America. Immigration is going to be necessary for many reasons, climate change, but also opportunities and arbitrage. Countries need to come up with smart ways to import and export people, while being very honest with their citizens about the reasons why.
The honesty part of this is crucial, and that's because the history of the world shows it is very easy to spread fear about outsiders, to demonize them. Poorly planned policies and a growing trend of nationalism make that instinct worse. I often think here about the Biden administration's well-meaning but very lax policies on asylum and immigration. People from around the world took advantage of it. Even after course correcting in Biden's last year in office, the damage was done. The Trump administration had room not only for a correction, but for an overcorrection with mass deportations and then trying to end birthright citizenship.
The reports that some of the Moroccan would-be immigrants merely heard about an open border on social media struck me as a harbinger for things to come. It is only going to get easier to spread fake news online. AI is making that worse. So, what happened in Siuttha is likely just a preview of what could happen over and over again and with much worse outcomes. The solution is not closed borders or zero immigration as the far-right advocates. Not only can that not work, it is not economically feasible, nor is the policy the other extreme argues for, a purely open utopia. A balanced middle is going to become more and more important, but it begins with having honest conversations with citizens about trade-offs.
We are all going to have to get much smarter about demographics in the coming years, at home and abroad.
Okay, on to this week's interview. Put yourself in the shoes of Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or the UAE. The Iran war has devastated their energy output, their airlines, their economies and tourism. Once the Iran war ends, how will these countries think about the future? We got a small preview in the last week with the signing of the so-called Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, a declaration between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey that an attack on one of them would be seen as an attack on all of them. The language is reminiscent of another collective security pact, the one between NATO member states in Europe and North America. So is the future of security in the Middle East a collection of many NATOs?