It's in fashion to bash Dubai, but the article isn't exactly well written. The author just grabs at everything potentially unappealing he can and throws it in a pot:
> (The UAE was one of only three nations—the others were Saudi Arabia and Pakistan—to recognize the Islamic fundamentalist government in Afghanistan.)
There's no analysis of why there - notice how Dubai is one of the most progressive countries in the Middle East about dress, culture, and women working, and yet gets no trouble/bombings from fundamentalists? They kind of have to appease knuckleheads geopolitically. Saudi Arabia do the same thing because they control Mecca and Medina and want to recognize all even nominally Muslim countries. Pakistan shares a really large, poorly guarded border with Afghanistan and a lot of citizens live along that border with no particular loyalty to either country's government - again, not rocking the boat for geopolitical reasons.
A lot of world nations recognize backwards places, which just means they'll negotiate with them - most of the world countries recognize North Korea, for instance, where the rampant abuses are 1000x worse than anything you could imagine in Dubai. That's not to say nothing is wrong in Dubai, but its demise has been greatly exaggerated, and this particular article isn't particularly well written.
> (The UAE was one of only three nations—the others were Saudi Arabia and Pakistan—to recognize the Islamic fundamentalist government in Afghanistan.)
There's no analysis of why there - notice how Dubai is one of the most progressive countries in the Middle East about dress, culture, and women working, and yet gets no trouble/bombings from fundamentalists? They kind of have to appease knuckleheads geopolitically. Saudi Arabia do the same thing because they control Mecca and Medina and want to recognize all even nominally Muslim countries. Pakistan shares a really large, poorly guarded border with Afghanistan and a lot of citizens live along that border with no particular loyalty to either country's government - again, not rocking the boat for geopolitical reasons.
A lot of world nations recognize backwards places, which just means they'll negotiate with them - most of the world countries recognize North Korea, for instance, where the rampant abuses are 1000x worse than anything you could imagine in Dubai. That's not to say nothing is wrong in Dubai, but its demise has been greatly exaggerated, and this particular article isn't particularly well written.