Dubai Playing its Hand Well, so Far

Something tells me that the story of the Mabhouh murder in Dubai has more legs than it has already run on, and it appears to be the apex of a trend of continuing stories coming out of Dubai and UK papers over the last year or so.

Yesterday, a minor leak in a Dubai shopping mall aquarium was picked up by a major UK paper and put it as the latest in a litany of Dubai ‘misfortunes’ that were recited: a bad real-estate sector, a lift problem in the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world), the Mabhouh murder and now the aquarium leak that closed down a section of the mall for a few hours.? If you follow the story between the lines, you may think that Dubai may turn out to be more ‘unstable and unsafe’ than Afghanistan in a couple of weeks or so!

Well, on a scale of disasters, the simultaneous weekend closure of the Jubilee and District and Hammersmith lines was more disruption to many more people (yours truly included) than any of the aforementioned incidents in Dubai. At least, Dubai reportedly completed its metro train project ahead of schedule (something that works like the DLR but more extensive), something Tubelines can learn from.

OK, back to the Dubai thing.? Dubai knows it has someone on its back — something has turned against it.? The scathing criticism in the Western media, though with cause, was much resented there.? So, now Dubai is playing its cards as it knows that this might it has to counter-attack.? This little PR skirmish has much greater repercussions with the whole US-Iran-Israel game in the Middle East.? More on this in a later.post.