Hitting Iran’s economy, Saudi’s GDP fall

There have been growing suggestions this week that the US will seek to put more economic pressure on Iran to force it to make concessions. But while Iran’s economy is showing increasing strains, the extent to which this influences the regime also hinges on which faction within the Iranian regime is in the ascendency. Elsewhere, the Q2 GDP figures out of Saudi Arabia showed that the war has taken a heavy toll on the economy, although not as much as we had feared. We think the impact on other Gulf countries will be larger.