UAE billionaire Habtoor openly lambasts Trump over Iran war

The Emirati businessman condemned the US president, a former business partner, for his “dangerous” attack on Iran and asked whether he had stopped to consider the collateral damage.

Jack Dutton

Mar 5, 2026

Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor, the founding chairman of global conglomerate Al Habtoor Group, has become the first high-profile Middle Eastern businessman to publicly criticize US President Donald Trump for waging a war with Iran that has upended the whole region.

What happened: In a Thursday post on X, Habtoor condemned the president’s decision to strike Iran as “dangerous” and asked whether he calculated the likely collateral damage before doing so.

“You have placed the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab countries at the heart of a danger they did not choose,” Habtoor said. “Thank God, we are strong and capable of defending ourselves, and we have armies and defenses that protect our homelands, but the question remains: Who gave you permission to turn our region into a battlefield?"

He accused the US and Israel of starting the war “before the ink has dried” on the Board of Peace initiative launched by Trump........

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