IKnowNothing

I think you're mistaking me for someone else.

Although when i was in AD, I was told that, I'm not there now.

DXBtoDOH

I am in in the good ol' USA now. None of my American coworkers seem to care. When I ask about it, they shrug and say what else did you expect from the Middle East.

I daresay they are right, it'll blow over after a bit of sabre rattling.

I do remember the Arab Spring. I never felt unsafe in Dubai.

csdf

RAK's the wrong direction though - I think Al Ain or Liwa is probably a better idea. Though Liwa is surrounded by oil and gas fields.

Millhouse

You guys all lack imagination. I'll be heading to the al hoota cave - there is water down there and the blind fish to eat.

scrubbedexpat141

Yeah, that's what my first thought was, head away from it, but RAK was an option because it's got many reasonably priced hotels, isn't that exciting and isn't too far away.

Still, some sort of plan is worth having I suppose.

TheShed

When we lived in Sri Lanka during the war (mid 90s), we always had a grab bag including passports, some gold and US dollars as it was quite possible we'd need to evacuate very quickly throughout our stay there.

Absolutely no idea why, but we've always kept the same thing together ever since. We did actually have to evacuate twice. Once to a 5* hotel as the power and water got cut for 6 days (hotels had gensets and wells), and once we got all the way to the embassy to be told that they didn't know what to do next either lol.

One back pack with the above contents, some cereal bars, bit of water, credit card with decent limit available etc. Guess I check it about once every couple of months. If anything did happen (very much doubt it), would grab the bag, my laptop bag (as it has cables and power banks for electronics along with ATM cards for emptying accounts on the way), jump in the car and head for Al Ain.

Wouldn't go near the airport or other crowded places, would avoid Fujairah as its now one of the biggest oil stocks in the world now or Abu Dhabi being the capital city and could be full of Saudis and Bahrainis heading over here.

Like I say, I think we are incredibly safe here, but old habits die hard. As for extra vigilance, we rarely go to the western hotspots, never go to military or government type places, so as long as the Iranians never discover the Red Lion, we'll be fine.

Pongo

TheShed

Millhouse

Millhouse

scrubbedexpat141

I could last indefinitely in my car in the desert.

By indefinitely, I mean, until I need a shit.

Miss Ann Thrope

I'd have thought Dubai was the safest place in the region other than Oman, at least from any Iranian attacks. Dubai is full of Iranians and, more importantly, an awful lot of Iranian money including a big proportion of what was laundered by Suleimani's RG. That is exactly the kind of corruption that fuelled the recent spate of protests in Iran (brutally put down by the same RG).

Abu Dhabi is an entirely different matter and I would have thought one of the riskier locations. Historically the AD rulers have been far more hostile to Iran over the Tunb islands and various silly pissing matches in the Gulf waters as they don't have to deal with the influence of blood ties from prominent Eimis in other Emirates, especially Dubai, Sharjah and RAK.

AD has actively sought to clamp down on Shia influence in the UAE (hence the sad decline in quality of shawarma as no Lebanese Shia have been getting their residency visas renewed for several years now). The serial handbags-at-dawn showdowns about the inheritance in RAK over the years were tied up in that as AD pushed its weight around to counter Shia/Iranian influence there, not without reason. Dubai has always resisted this as they depend so much on dodgy trade with Iran. AD has to live with Dubai's Iranian ties and it does have the benefit of providing a back channel otherwise unavailable to the hardline AD ruling family (same way as MBR is the only one that the Omanis will talk to).

Despite recent dust-ups, MBZ is still seen as MBS’s mentor, though arguably the UAE’s prosecution of the “war” in South Yemen to some extent serves Iran’s purpose as it contains the salafists there, allowing the Iranian-proxy Houthis to consolidate their position in the north against the inept Saudis. And on top of all that, AD (and in particular, the ruling faction of the ruling family) is seen as being close to Trump whereas MBR has played things much more coolly with the Americans.

Therefore, Al Ain (home city of the Bani Fatima and crawling with US “advisers”) and Liwa (oil – remember the recent Iranian attacks in Saudi?) are among the last places I would head towards.

Proceed directly to Hatta; do not pass Ghantoot! Alternatively Barasti is probably not a bad call.

DXBtoDOH

I always enjoy your posts. You should do a John Le Carre for the region.

Eeyore

All the "this happens every few years" comments seem to be ignoring the fact that this time, the White House is occupied by a lunatic in clear mental decline who has no functioning national security mechanism, is surrounded by people who tell him what he wants to hear, and in his desperation to distract from his impeachment could quite conceivably start something that spirals out of control and goes nuclear in exactly the most literal and catastrophic way.

If that happens, all the grab bags and passports in the world will become utterly meaningless.

carcajou

Thanks for the update from Crazytown.