> Iran would diversify and overcome the situation. They've been under embargo one way or another for nearly 30 years so they have experience in maintaing the ne

> Iran would diversify and overcome the situation. They've been under embargo one way or another for nearly 30 years so they have experience in maintaing the necessary cash flow to pay their citizens and avoid major economic collapse. Iran is quite an industrialised and high-tech nation with many skilled engineers. I know they look a bit bad when they release videos of model aircraft as fancy stealth bomber. But I have no doubt that they'd overcome such a situation. It looks much worse for the Arab oil nations because they lack industry, skilled engineers or labour, or any kind of research. The financial market is a fragile thing and well Dubai is build on sand. We've seen in the crisis that nations with an industrialized base did much better than nations who were more focused on financial markets. In Arab oil countries the situation is that large projects are designed by European, American, or East Asian engineers and architects and the construction is done by basically South Asian slave labour. In the end the building is left but nothing of the know how and skills that came with the project. Another big indicator is the lack of a Saudi space program. Usually if a nation just has too much money a space program is a great way to boost engineering, science, industry in the country. Even Nigeria has a space program. Alternative would be a build up of the military. Which the Gulf states are clearly doing. But they import all their weapons from Europe or the US. Again no domestic research or industry. And military isn't really an investment. Once you try to reduce the budget the fighting power decreases dramatically and your past investments start to rot. edit: My crystal ball is therefore rather showing negative picture. I believe there will be huge social unrest. It won't happen immediately but gradually. It will turn out similar to Egypt, Libya, or Syria. Currently the Saudis and Gulf states are using radical Sunni Islamists as a way to fight Shia Islam/Iran. They already used Islamism as a tool against Panarab Socialism but their current support goes far beyond that. And this will all eventually come back to them. There could even be an open war between Iran and the Gulf States.