Inside Dubai During the Strike

Safety, Uncertainty, and the Questions No One Can Answer

Shelter in place has been ordered in Dubai. The words feel surreal. The night air smells like charred plastic.

I was born in Iran during unrest, and decades later, just a month after returning to the region, the city that built a strong identity on safety is under attack. There’s something circular about this for me. I left one maelstrom of instability behind as a toddler, and here I am looking at what could be the makings of another. In a way, the past has entered my life again, without warning.

The Fairmont was hit with a stream of fury from above. Those strikes make me think of vipers- cruel in their percussion. Vitriolic and deadly.

The booms are what get you. Deep, sudden, physical, shaking you alert. At times it sounds like a plane tearing across the sky, too low, too close. The government says stay inside, so I stay inside. I slept through the night somehow, then woke avalanched by frantic messages, friends and family asking if I’m safe, if I’m leaving, if this is escalating, who I’m with. The phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. It felt like waking into someone else’s life.

Outside, the day seems innocent enough. The sky is clear. The light is soft. Birds are chirping like nothing’s shifted. Traffic still moves below my building, slower, thinner, but there is life. My landlord still wants the rent. The world insists on functioning. That’s the eerie part. Normalcy is suspended, weaved together with some silent undercurrent of fear. You can feel it in your chest, a low hum that won’t quiet. A breath you can’t exhale yet.

I’d just celebrated my birthday at the One&Only Royal Mirage spa. A traditional hammam, a glorious scrub that felt like shedding an old skin, a massage to mark a new year of life. I walked out glowing and grounded, wandering to the shore to let my feet feel the lapping water. The warm night air met my new skin in sweet rushes. I watched the twinkle of new buildings and listened to laughter and music pulsing from small boats along the bay.

Now my thoughts race with along with the traffic below. Why did the US strike a girls school, killing 100 young girls?! What does this conflict mean for the future of Dubai in particular? For the reputation that made this place magnetic? I’ve always said Dubai is one catastrophe away from losing its image as a safe choice for investment and family life. If people start dying from missile or other means, the Emirates would face their worst nightmare. Leadership here has done such a beautiful job of turning a sandy fishing port into a glamorous world class city where dreams come true for many.

And then even bigger questions: Will a war with Iran stretch on and force me out of here? Will expats quietly pack their lives into suitcases in mass exodus? Did I misread the signs that brought me back to this region? Will Dubai’s defenses hold if this escalates? Will power shift inside Iran give Ali Khamenei’s son rise, will it be the Shah’s son- Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, or will someone else take the reins? Is this invasion about resources, power plays, or something we’re not being told? Is this the beginning of a global rupture we’ll look back on as the start of a world war?

I don’t have answers. I have the sound of distant booms and overhead roaring, the brightness of a desert morning, and the strange sense that life can pivot in a single night. There’s a split between the visible and the invisible, between birdsong and bunker busting. For now, I’m inside. Watching. Listening. Feeling the weight of history press in close again.