Looking back on this Middle East war, I realized that my understanding of many things has changed.

About a year ago, when the situation began to heat up, I tried to sort out how this conflict might reshape asset allocation. At that time, I proposed a four-stage framework; now, looking back, some of my forecasts turned out right, while others were completely unexpected. What’s most interesting is that the market’s way of reacting often mattered more than what specifically happened in determining the outcome.

The first stage was denial. The market swung entirely with the statements of political figures, and everyone was rushing to believe this was just a short-term conflict. But I already knew then that the root of this Middle East war wasn’t conventional political considerations—it was deeper theological and historical narratives. Iran’s decision-making logic simply doesn’t work for Western policymakers. This isn’t just me predicting the worst-case scenario; it’s history itself speaking.

Then came that critical six-week window. I remember calculating it very clearly at the time: attacks on energy infrastructure take time to transmit to the consumer end. Qatar’s South Pars gas field and LNG facilities were badly hit, and this wasn’t something that could be quickly repaired. I had worked in Ras Laffan Industrial City before, and I’d seen those huge production lines firsthand—once they’re struck by missiles, the only way forward is systematic inspections and phased restart. If some customized parts break, you have to wait for them to be manufactured anew by China or Korea, which takes several months.

During that period, freight costs started to adjust, and logistics carriers repriced based on new fuel costs. I watched the February PPI data come out and knew that April would be worse. Inflation is not something monetary policy can solve—there’s a printing press at the central bank, but there are no petroleum engineers, and there’s no LNG production line in the basement.

What surprised me most was the speed of the employment collapse. By summer, companies began massively replacing labor with AI—not because of some innovative strategy, but purely out of survival instinct. Facing higher energy costs and pressure on profit margins, all they could do was cut labor. This kind of structural employment loss, layered on top of the shocks caused by the Middle East war, accelerated the entire timeline. The central bank’s employment authorization arrived earlier than anyone expected.

Now, looking back, those who bought AI-related technology companies at the cheapest times indeed captured the most critical turning point. Back then, the stock prices were hammered the hardest, but the narrative logic became stronger instead—the companies that survived were the ones that turned around in time.

The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz was never truly resolved. More than 20 ships were attacked, and the actions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard continued to escalate. If the Houthis start attacking Red Sea shipping, global maritime trade would be split in two. This isn’t a hypothetical—it’s real geopolitical reality.

Most worrying of all is the conflict over desalination facilities. Over 90% of the Gulf region’s desalinated water comes from fewer than 60 plants, posing a survival-level threat to roughly 64 million people in the area. Once these facilities become targets, the consequences will go far beyond the Syrian civil war.

After coming out of this Middle East war, energy independence became a major bipartisan political issue. South Pars, Qatar LNG, and refineries in Saudi Arabia were engulfed in flames one after another, making the fragility of energy infrastructure undeniable. Every politician campaigned on the slogan of “never relying on the Middle East again.” In Congress, both parties were highly aligned on infrastructure investment, expanding extraction, and nuclear energy, which drove a wave of investment across energy and related industries.

The most important lesson I’ve learned is this: I’m not predicting—I’m adapting. The framework can be adjusted at any time, but the understanding of fundamentals—the intersection of energy, employment, and geopolitics—doesn’t change.

The assets located within U.S. jurisdiction or in the Western Hemisphere have indeed benefited from this. Not only energy companies, but also those forced to improve productivity amid the crisis. The AI story in this war has never been just about companies building AI—it’s about the companies that used AI to survive.