DUBAI — Schools have reopened, and the missile and drone alerts have stopped. The financial center, a ghost town at the height of Iran’s retaliatory attacks, is back near full capacity. Traffic once again chokes the streets of this futuristic metropolis.
But behind the veneer of normalcy in Dubai is fatigue and a sharp sense of uncertainty. As airstrikes in recent days by Iran, the United States and Israel have raised the specter of a return to war, a quiet reckoning is underway about what the future might hold.
“We are at this juncture point,” said Mohammed Baharoon, the director general of B’huth, a Dubai research center. “Are we going to maintain the view of the world that we had before, or not? Is this war going to mutate our DNA?”
Previously, Baharoon said the DNA of the United Arab Emirates, and much of the Persian Gulf region, was coded for “connectivity and economic relations despite political strife.”
But if Iranian extremists continue to control the Strait of Hormuz, he said, and use violence to exert pressure — such as recent strikes on Kuwait and Bahrain — a new reality will set it with ramifications felt far beyond the Gulf given its role as a financial and logistical linchpin.
The U.S.-Israeli war, Baharoon said, has taught Tehran how to menace its adversaries even without developing the nuclear bomb that President Donald Trump insists he will prevent.
“The whole world economy is Iran’s human shield,” Baharoon said. “This is now Iran’s newfound nuclear weapon.”
In the initial weeks of the war, the UAE, of which Dubai is the most populated of seven emirates, fielded a barrage of more than 2,600 missile and drone strikes.
While the vast majority were intercepted, the government reported 13 deaths and the strikes represented a direct threat to the UAE’s carefully crafted reputation as an oasis of wealth and stability.
Dubai, where about 90 percent of the 4 million residents are foreigners, was hit especially hard. Iran bombed landmarks like the Fairmont Hotel and the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab, Dubai International Airport and multiple buildings in the financial center.
The strikes slowed to a trickle after a ceasefire deal in April, and many residents have returned after an initial exodus. But while some sectors seem resilient — the stock market rebounded and construction continues — others, like tourism, have been decimated.
Ratings firm Moody’s, for example, predicts that hotel occupancy in Dubai will drop to 10 percent in the second quarter, from 80 percent before the war.
Cherif Sleiman, the chief revenue officer of Property Finder, a real estate company akin to Zillow, said that while searches on its site are back to near prewar levels, final transactions remain down.
“We can be under no illusion: This has gone on longer than any of us imagined,” Sleiman said. “Trump doesn’t inspire any confidence. You hear there is a deal, then you hear bombs.”
If the lack of clarity continues for another four to six weeks, Sleiman said he fears that more families will decide to leave Dubai and enroll their children at schools in their home countries for the fall.
“There is an incredible amount of interest in being here,” said Sleiman, who is Lebanese American and has lived in Dubai for 20 years. He has decided to stay, he said, to show his commitment to the UAE, a loyalty he said was based largely on trust in the government and the way it has supported businesses and residents.
But when it comes to ending the war, he said: “Everyone understands: It is not in their hands.”
Sitting this week in Brookfield Place, a busy office and retail center in the financial district, Liberty Jones, an American who has lived in Dubai for 13 years, described feeling “a fatigue that comes with the unknown.”
“Dubai is incredible, and the government has masterminded this incredible city that we all want to live in,” said Jones, who moved her family to Switzerland shortly after the war started and just returned two weeks ago. “But we are rethinking our long-term plan.”
While much is back to business as usual — Brookfield was bustling at lunchtime — Jones said there were quiet signs everywhere that things are not quite right, from the closed yoga studios to the exodus of students from international schools and higher grocery prices.
“People will say things are back to normal,” she added, “but we all know they are not.”
On the city’s outskirts, in neighborhoods where migrant workers who are the backbone of Dubai’s economy live, the effects of the war are felt acutely. The majority of war casualties in the Gulf were among migrant workers supporting their families back home. As hotels and restaurants closed, these workers were laid off en masse.
For those who remain, higher fuel and food prices are especially tough.
“It is not okay, but we are managing, for now,” said Isaac Antwi, 52, a security guard from Ghana who was shopping for vegetables at a grocery store in the Al Quoz neighborhood.
While the price of groceries had increased and his family in Ghana fear for his safety, Antwi said he tries to reassure them knowing he is still earning more in Dubai than he would at home.
Simon Obbo, 27, who is from Uganda and works as a cashier in a liquor store, said that despite the fear of higher prices, he doesn’t see leaving as an option. “I still need to achieve my dream,” Obbo said. “That dream is supporting my family.”
At the desert tourism companies outside Dubai, rows of quad bikes sat unused on a recent day, the few staff members who remained taking shelter from the broiling sun. Many of the companies have closed altogether, employees said, while others laid off staff.
Summers in Dubai are always quiet for such tourism, staff explained, but recent months have been something else entirely.
“Business is down 95 percent,” said Alex, a manager at one of the oldest companies, who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by first name because of fear of the government, which has carefully guarded the UAE’s image.
“We fear that this will not end,” Alex said, “that it will become like Ukraine.”
After three years in Dubai, Alex said, he is now planning to leave in September, unsure what the future here holds.
Hattie Sinclair, an American whose family moved to Dubai in August after she and her husband lost their jobs as USAID contractors, said their overwhelming feeling most days is that things are surreal.
As strikes ramped up in recent days, Sinclair said she watched the news closely. “I’m not anxious but I am aware,” she said, adding that her biggest concern is a return to distance learning for her two children. “The war feels both very close and very far away.”
They’d arrived in Dubai thinking it “would be easy living,” she said, and now laughed that they were being haunted by Trump’s bad decisions.
Still, Sinclair said they have no plans to move and “believe that in so many ways, Dubai is the future.” One thing, she said, is certain: “We are sure — we would much rather be here than in the U.S. right now.”
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