TheChek News Flow

Ties that date back centuries are under heavy strain from Iran’s bombardments during the war

DUBAI—The United Arab Emirates has launched a broad crackdown on Iranians in the country, including canceling visas and closing institutions to protest Tehran’s daily drone and missile attacks.

Several Iranian families in Dubai say they have relatives who have lived in the U.A.E. for decades whose visas were suddenly revoked, sometimes while they were traveling, leaving them unable to return.

This week the U.A.E. announced a broader ban on Iranian passport holders from entering or transiting the country. Earlier, it closed the Iranian Hospital—an institution nearly as old as the state—along with an Iranian social club and several Iranian schools, making it harder for families to stay.

The moves have hit a community of nearly half a million people that long has long underpinned a mutually lucrative relationship between the two countries.

The U.A.E. is Iran’s most important link to the global economy and for years has served as a financial hub for Iranian businesses and people seeking a haven from Western sanctions, according to analysts tracking Tehran’s activities and the U.S. Treasury. Iranian cash, in turn, has helped fuel the growth of the Emirati commercial capital, Dubai.

At a decades-old Iranian restaurant in Dubai, Al Ustad Special Kebab, owner Majeed Ansari said he understands the U.A.E. government’s tightening restrictions.

“They want safety, and I understand that,” he said, as waiters bustled past with plates of yogurt-marinated mutton and chicken kebabs. He said that historical ties between Iran and Dubai run deep and won’t be easily shaken by the continuing conflict.

“They respect us, and we respect them,” said Ansari, whose father opened the eatery nearly half a century ago, in 1978, just seven years after the U.A.E. was established.

Just across the street at the Ali Bin Ali grocery store, a shopkeeper was more apprehensive as he arranged boxes of Iranian dates and nuts. He said he has family in Iran but considers Dubai home, and fears leaving in case he can’t return.

The U.A.E. and Iran have always had tensions, but they have intensified under wartime pressure. Iran began firing drones and missiles at the U.A.E. almost immediately after it came under attack by the U.S. and Israel, hitting marquee targets including Dubai’s man-made Palm island, the Burj al-Arab luxury hotel and the airport. Overall it has fired around 2,500 drones and missiles at the country, far more than it has launched at Israel.

The U.A.E. is preparing for the possibility of military involvement with Iran and may take action to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force, which would make it the first Persian Gulf country to become a combatant, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. A U.A.E. official said the country’s posture remains defensive.

The U.A.E. also is considering tougher financial actions, including freezing Iranian assets in the country, the Journal has reported. Every pressure point on Iran is under consideration, a person familiar with the U.A.E.’s evolving policy toward Iranian residents said this week. Authorities will reassess residency policies for communities like Iranians in light of wartime attacks on the economy, the official said.

The U.A.E.’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said its Iranian community is a valued and integral part of its social fabric.

The Persian and Arab populations that line either side of the Strait of Hormuz have been intertwined for centuries. Parts of what is now Iran’s coastline was controlled in the 1800s by a dynasty based in the present-day U.A.E.

Iranian migration to what is now the U.A.E. came in several waves. Merchants came to Dubai in the 19th century. Pious Muslims came in the 1920s, leaving Iran as the shah secularized the nation, including banning the headscarf. Secular Iranians later came in droves to escape the Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s.

Some early Iranian migrants became Emirati citizens during the foundation of the U.A.E. in the early 1970s. More than half of all Emiratis trace their ancestral roots to southern Iran, said Mira Al Hussein, an associate fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Alwaleed bin Talal Centre.

Other migrants didn’t qualify but continued to live as Iranian nationals in the U.A.E. Some families have resided in the U.A.E. for generations on visas that must be renewed every few years and depend on employment or property ownership.

“There are a lot of politics around the Persian origin,” said Al Hussein, who is Emirati of ancestral Persian origin. “Families who have been in the Emirates a long time ago wear it proudly. Others, especially those that came later, changed their name, worried about being assumed to have dual loyalties.”

Those tensions are now coming to a head. Many Iranians with U.A.E. residency who were abroad during the war have had their residency permits canceled, leaving students stranded at U.S. universities and travelers stuck on family visits in Iran. A notice from the Dubai-based Emirates Airline said Iranian nationals aren’t allowed to enter or transit the country.

On Wednesday, at a travel agency near Al Ustad Special Kebab that advertised “flights to Persia,” the owner said his business to and from Iran had dried up. The government had been increasingly rejecting visa applications for Iranians since the war began, he said.

The parking lot at Dubai’s Towheed Iranian Boys School sat deserted. The lettering had been stripped from the building, leaving only a faint imprint of the school’s name on the facade. Four U.A.E. flags fluttered from the roof in the afternoon breeze, while a small fleet of roughly two dozen school buses stood idle beside the compound.

Across town, entrances to the Iranian Hospital were barred, including the emergency wing. A lone security guard pacing the grounds said authorities closed the facility about a week ago. The morning after the abrupt shutdown, he said he had to turn away doctors and nurses who arrived unaware.

Calls to the hospital, the Iranian Club and the Iranian Business Council went unanswered. Calls to the Salman Farsi School and Towheed Iranian School went straight to a voicemail indicating the power had been cut off.

Saif Sabet, who moved to Dubai more than two decades ago from the Iranian city of Gerash, said he would skip a planned trip to Iran later this year given the new climate. He owns two grocery shops in Dubai and said his roots are now firmly established in the city. His bank called him recently to check in on him, he said with a smile.

“Everyone is hospitable to us here,” he said. “My family is here; my business is here; my life is here.”

One Iranian resident said he was detained by police after an officer stopped and asked for his identification as he wandered on the beach. He was released after being questioned.

Others said they fear that they would be deported if they were critical of the U.A.E., but also that the Islamic Republic could go after their families if they denounce Iran.

“The war is going to have a long-term, permanent impact,” said Mishaal Al Gergawi, an Emirati entrepreneur and writer.

“There will be skepticism around any kind of coexistence with the Iranian regime,” he said. “Iran lost a tolerant neighbor.”