Roman Stadnicki is a geographer, researcher and lecturer at the University of Tours. A specialist in Gulf countries’ urban landscapes, he published Au-delà de Dubaï. Projeter et produire la ville moderne dans le monde arabe (“Beyond Dubai: Designing and Producing the Modern City in the Arab World”) in February. He also co-edited L’Abécédaire de la ville au Maghreb et au Moyen-Orient (“The ABCs of the city in North Africa and the Middle East”), a collective work. In this interview, he explains why the Iranian strikes on the Arabian Peninsula’s city-states hold significant symbolic weight, even though the number of human casualties and amount of material damage inflicted so far has remained limited.

What impact have the Iranian strikes had on the Gulf micro-monarchies?

If the Iranians had limited themselves to targeting foreign – mainly American – military bases stationed on their territory, which have a certain extraterritorial status, it would not have been overly concerning for these principalities. But damage occurred beyond those perimeters. In Dubai, a fire broke out on Saturday, February 28, at the base of the Burj Al-Arab tower, after the interception of an Iranian projectile caused debris to fall. Burj Al-Arab, a hotel which is famous for its sail-shaped structure, has been described with all kinds of superlatives. For a long time, it was the most expensive establishment in the world, boasting seven stars. It features prominently in all of Dubai’s city marketing products.

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