Dubai Diary (Reimagining the Middle East — and America)

Dear Colleagues,

I’m inspired. I’ve just finished a town hall meeting with our Dubai-based team — an exciting group with energy, drive, and dedication.

We need to do more to build bridges between Springfield headquarters and our associates across the region. I know Leila Bazzi, Billy Sabatini, and Deirdre Kline are on the case. We’re striving for the right balance of autonomy and accountability. Let’s push ourselves and give MBN talent both the support they need and space to run they deserve.

I’ll have dinner here this evening with media executives from Sky, CNN, France 24, and Asharq News. Warmest thanks to our Dubai colleague Valia Chami for arrangements. There’s competition to learn from (and, competitors to beat).

I had breakfast yesterday with our friend Jamie Angus, former head of the BBC World Service. Jamie has just finished his two and a half year stint leading operations for Al Arabiya. He’s filled insight and ideas.

I visited the new media group Blinx this morning. They’re impressive, with vibe and technology. Self-described as “by the youth, for the youth,  and empowered by state-of-the-art AI,” the Blinx mission is “to change the narrative” through spectacular storytelling. The target is Gen Z and millennials (I admit to being curious about exactly what narratives are up for change).

It can be hard to sort politics from business from media here. Established in fall 2023, the media group was backed at the start by investor Tareq Ahmed Al Masaood, from the auto sales giant Al Masaood Group. A key business target — partnership with China to make the UAE a gateway for auto imports into the region.

Chinese officials boast of a growing comprehensive strategic partnership with the UAE. President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan calls China his “second homeland”; he’s visited China six times, most recently in May 2024.

Here’s a Blinx story on Chinese naval exercises surrounding Taiwan. Amusing is the embedded video of a Taiwanese parliamentarian “stealing voting papers” (would that such theft were even possible in the PRC’s National People’s Congress).

Matters stand to become more complicated. The U.S. sees the UAE as a key strategic ally. Israel and the UAE normalized relations in 2020 with the signing of the Abraham Accords. Before the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, trade relations were flourishing and the UAE-Israel Business Council had been posting daily on social media. The Council’s last post was on October 8.

Last month, the UAE was quick to denounce Israel’s attack on Iran. It all feels close here. You hear Farsi in Dubai’s luxury shopping malls. It’s two hours flying time from Dubai to Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. The Iranian-German dissident Iran executed last week — a U.S. Green Card holder residing in Glendora east of LA — was kidnapped by Iranian agents from a Dubai hotel.

Reimagining the Middle East — and America?

Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi once wrote to King Faisal of Saudi Arabia about the importance of modernization. That was in the late 1960s. The Shah argued at the time that the Saudi King needed to liberalize in order to survive. History has its ironies and tables turn.

Read Karim Sadjapour’s new essay on Saudi Arabia and Iran’s clash of visions for the Middle East in the November/December Foreign Affairs. Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, is pushing for modernization and a measure of opening for social freedoms. Iran’s Supreme Leader backs proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, funds most of Hamas’s military budget, and calls MBS “a criminal.”

We’ve invited Karim to a discussion at MBN. Our colleague Faris Almaari has agreed to moderate. Faris hails for Jeddah. Stand by for the date.

I’m reading brilliant futuristic novelist Neal Stephenson’s 2021 climate change thriller Termination Shock. In a not-so-distant future, there’s new dizzying technologies, grand geo-strategic conflict, astonishing power grabs, and wicked social engineering.

I’ve just cracked open Philip Dick’s 1974 science fiction novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. The United States has become a

police state in the aftermath of a second American civil war.

I’m re-reading British author David Goodhart’s book on “the new tribes shaping British politics.” It’s clearly a growing phenomenon, the growing conflict of vision and values inside Western democracies. In the U.S., voters ties to our two mainstream parties have been loosening. Trust in elites has been eroding. Cultural and structural change is a afoot.

At a dinner here last night, I asked the table for predictions. It was seven to four calling tomorrow’s election for Trump over Harris.

Deep yoga breath. Keep steady.

Thanks for your remarkable work.

My best, Jeff