Dubai #4: And Yet...

The Dubai series of blogs was based on (and written) before the Iran war. Given how small the UAE is, how it has never shown signs of religious fanatism, how cosmopolitan Dubai and Abu Dhabi are, how integrated Dubai is as an airport hub and tourist destination, I was curious why Iran targets the UAE so much more compared to the other Gulf countries during the war.

 

Well, there are multiple reasons. One, UAE (like so many other Gulf countries) hosts American military and air force bases. Iran attacked those to increase the cost to the US and for the PR value of destroying American bases. But that should apply for all other Gulf countries as well, so it doesn’t explain why Iran targets UAE so much more. Which brings us to Two. UAE is very close (100 km), comfortably within Iran’s short-range missiles and drones, making it a cheaper option to hit. Three, the fact that Dubai (and Abu Dhabi) are global financial hubs means the splatter is felt world over. Four, the UAE had built at least one port that lay beyond the Straits of Hormuz. Bypassing Hormuz reduces Iran’s geopolitical leverage, an unacceptable situation for Iran with the war. Five, UAE’s relations and tieups with both the US and Israel seem to be a lot more than other Gulf states. Iran has repeatedly accused UAE of allowing its airspace to be used for attacks against Iran, a charge not levelled against the other Gulf states.

 

As one article put it, “Iran's campaign against the UAE reveals a calculated strategy to impose economic, psychological, and political costs on a highly visible (target)”. I suspect that Iran is also sending a loud and clear signal to the UAE – the other Gulf states, being oil rich, will get back to business when the war ends. But the UAE runs the risk of permanent damage to its image of being a safe locale, and the associated loss of expats and tourists could be long lasting and economically ruinous. As Iranian officials supposed told UAE:

“Habibi, when America leaves, it will be just you and me.”

 

That would be so ironical. The one country that actually diversified away from oil may be the most vulnerable state in the Gulf economically. Such then is life. You can make all the right choices and policies, as we saw in earlier blogs, and yet your choice of allies (US and Israel against Iran) and the neighbourhood you live in may come and bite you in the back (As Indian diplomats say, “You can change your friends, but not your neighbours”).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Need for an Informed Aadhar Debate

As Aadhar increases in scope, supporters consider it necessary, says L.Viswanath : “We have Aadhaar getting linked to ration cards, NREGA payments, PAN cards, bank accounts, mobile SIMs, mid-day meals in schools, school admissions, university admissions…the list is endless. In a country plagued by corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency, the hope is that Aadhaar will help eliminate fraudulent identities, thereby saving the direct and indirect losses to the nation.” Conversely, opponents don’t cite concrete use-cases of how it might be abused apart from throwing phrases (“Orwellian state”) that sound scary. Until its opponents provide such details, supporters will win the argument by simply asking why Aadhar should be restricted only to subsidy schemes, as Subhashis Banerjee points out : “Admittedly there are substantial leakages in these schemes, but surely the need for de-duplication and strict record keeping and audits are as much, if not more, in the domains of tax co...
Read more

Nazis and the Physics Connection

When the Nazi government seized power, they started removing Jews from more and more positions, including the civil services, and the science departments of Germany. Those physicists who saw the writing on the wall fled to either UK (like Schrodinger) or the US (like Einstein), writes Adam Becker in What is Real?   The great physicist, Enrico Fermi, wasn’t a Jew. But when Mussolini aligned with Hitler, Fermi came under suspicion since his wife was a Jew. To make matters problematic, Mussolini’s new laws had made it illegal to take “more than pocket change” out of Italy. Neils Bohr broke an unwritten rule of the Nobel and told Fermi that he (Fermi) was in the running for the Nobel that year. Perhaps Fermi, should he win, could consider escaping from Stockholm with the prize money to start a new life? Fermi agreed, but it was touch and go – his wife’s passport had been confiscated, which meant she couldn’t come to Stockholm. Fermi managed to pull a few strings to get her passport...
Read more

Apartheid Crash Course

The standup comedian Trevor Noah’s autobiography, Born a Crime , is about his life in South Africa only , so it doesn’t talk of his career as a comedian or life in the West. What it describes about the apartheid regime in South Africa is horrifying. Unlike many evils of the West, this is a recent one that continued till the 1990’s. It is thus not something that can be brushed aside as “It was a different era, you can’t apply today’s standards to older times”.   Apartheid was created after “studying” the institutionalized racism of Australia, America and Netherlands.   America, for example, moved the natives to specific areas called “reservations”, practiced slavery and then moved onto segregation. In South Africa, they did all of the above to the same group (blacks). The outcome? “The most advanced system of racial oppression known to man”.   A system built on the idea that races should not mix has to declare inter-racial relations (romance, marriage, children) i...
Read more