The Inside Brief

Mike Pompeo is the only person in American history to have served as both CIA director and secretary of state.

A West Point graduate who finished first in his class, a Harvard Law Review editor and a former manufacturing entrepreneur, he served under US President Donald Trump and was one of the architects of the Abraham Accords. His memoir is titled Never Give an Inch.

Speaking to Manus Cranny in New York, days after attending Senator Lindsey Graham's funeral in Washington, where Benjamin Netanyahu also met with Mr Trump, Mr Pompeo does not characterise the conflict as a Middle East war. He calls it a global one, tying Iran, China and Russia into a single axis.

On this episode of The Inside Brief, Mr Pompeo explains why he believes the Gulf states will ultimately join the US in delivering a decisive blow to Iran's military capabilities, why economic pressure is already visibly degrading life inside Iran, even if the outside world cannot see it, and what a realistic roadmap to ending the conflict looks like.

Mr Pompeo also addresses the Netanyahu-Trump relationship, the prospect of regime change in Iran, the Abraham Accords as a model for post-war Gulf unity, and whether a two-state solution is remotely realistic today.

He closes with what he considers the single greatest risk beyond the Gulf: Western civilisation losing confidence in itself.

The Inside Brief with Manus Cranny is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other major platforms.

Mohammed Alardhi joined the Royal Air Force of Oman as a cadet in 1978, trained as a fighter pilot at RAF Cranwell and rose to command the entire Omani Air Force with the rank of Air Vice Marshal, before leaving for Harvard.

He is now executive chairman of Investcorp. The alternative asset manager founded in 1982 made its name buying and selling Tiffany and Gucci, and has since grown from $10 billion to $63 billion in assets under management under his leadership.

 
In this episode of The Inside Brief, Manus Cranny sits down with Mr Alardhi at Investcorp's headquarters in London's Mayfair to discuss how the firm has navigated months of regional conflict without a material impact on capital flows, why he believes anyone who has bet against the Gulf in the past 50 years has lost, and where the next alpha lies as Investcorp targets $100 billion in assets under management.

They also discuss the $2 trillion in AI commitments between the Gulf and the US, whether markets are heading for a bubble, how Investcorp is deploying AI across its business, and why the firm continues to see opportunity in the UK despite its political turbulence.

Mr Alardhi also reflects on the lessons fighter pilots and investment professionals share, and what conviction, calculated risk and trusting your team mean when the stakes are high.

The Inside Brief with Manus Cranny is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other major platforms.

The International Energy Agency was founded in 1974, in the wake of the Arab oil embargo, with a clear mandate: co-ordinate emergency stock releases in a crisis. In 2026, that mandate has been tested like never before.

On March 11, the IEA authorised the release of 400 million barrels of oil, the largest co-ordinated stock release in the agency's history, after the Strait of Hormuz closure sent the global energy market into its worst crisis in half a century.

In this episode of The Inside Brief, Manus Cranny sits down with IEA executive director Fatih Birol at the agency's headquarters in Paris. They discuss whether Saudi Arabia and the UAE can fully rebuild their reputations as reliable exporters and why Asian buyers are already diversifying away from Gulf supply regardless of whether the strait fully reopens.

By Mr Birol's own measure, the world has lost more barrels from this crisis than the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks combined.

Mr Birol also addresses oil price trajectory and the conditions required for a return to prewar export levels, what Iran's barrels can realistically add to global supply, the UAE's decision to leave Opec and what it means for the cartel's future, and how the IEA is navigating the Trump administration's energy dominance doctrine while expanding its membership to Nigeria, Brazil and India.

“The vase is broken,” Birol says. “The Strait of Hormuz is closed once, and it can be closed again. It is now in everybody's mind.”

The Inside Brief with Manus Cranny is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other major platforms.

Next month marks a turning point for the UAE's space industry. Abu Dhabi-based satellite company Orbitworks will ship Altair-1, the first satellite designed and built in the country for commercial export, to California to launch.

Leading that effort is Dr Hamdullah Mohib, acting chief executive of Orbitworks. His path to the role is unlike almost any other in the industry. An engineer by training, he was Afghanistan's ambassador to Washington during the administration of former US president Barack Obama before becoming national security adviser to former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, a role that placed him at the centre of some of the most consequential moments in his country's recent history.

 
On this episode of The Inside Brief, Dr Mohib joins Manus to discuss what the Orbitworks milestone represents for the UAE's ambition to become a commercial exporter of space technology, why it chose an exclusively US and European technology stack, what the SpaceX IPO - at a valuation of $1.77 trillion - means for the broader sector, and how a constellation of 10 satellites equipped with Nvidia chips could change the way industries, from oil and gas to insurance, interact with Earth observation data.

He also talks about his youth as a refugee in Pakistan, the negotiation lessons he learned at his father's table, and what resilience looks like for someone who has spent a lifetime choosing to put fear aside and seize opportunities as they arise.

The Inside Brief with Manus Cranny is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other major platforms.

When the US-Iran conflict was at its peak, most developers were waiting, but Mahdi Amjad was accelerating.

The founder and executive chairman of Omniyat Group, which encompasses the UAE's leading ultra-luxury developer Omniyat, sat down with Manus Cranny on location at The Opus building in Dubai Business Bay for a conversation about building through conflict, the numbers behind his confidence, and why he believes this moment is the greatest opportunity the UAE has offered.

Mr Amjad reveals that despite a short-term reduction in sales since the war began, all Omniyat's projects remain in full construction, fully funded to completion.

He also announces that Omniyat Group's total portfolio has already surpassed Dh120 billion, having set a five-year target of Dh100 billion just two years ago. The new target is more than Dh200 billion by 2030.

In the conversation, Mr Amjad also reflects on his 35 years in the UAE, the lessons he learnt from a decade working with the late Zaha Hadid on Opus, how he redesigned the building mid-crisis during the 2008 financial crash, and why he exited his entire London portfolio in 2003 to bet on Dubai.

On AI, Mr Amjad reveals Omniyat Group has set up a dedicated transformation division and is on track to invest more than $100 million in AI, which he calls one of the best investments he has made.