Why would we want insiders to profit on a public decision like war? If some general has money on Iran's leader being taken out by March 1, he might not be acting in the best interest of the country.
For me that feels like the difference between insider trading and market manipulation.
The idea is that prediction markets show the “odds” of an event occurring (that’s why it’s percentages after all).
So if a war with Iran is going to happen, and so a general bets that it will, the odds will jump and go very high.
Now at least theoretically, people in the Middle East can see the high odds, and travel elsewhere.
After seeing how many people got trapped in the UAE, I might check these prediction markets in the future for similar things.