In the last two weeks he has seen flying missiles and fighters over his head, he has had to work for several days confined at home by government order and has faced a harrowing gymkhana of canceled flights, purchase of new tickets and successive air stops to return to Spain. However, Eric Fauróa 28-year-old from Alicante, conveys a disconcerting sense of tranquility and confidence when he talks about Dubai, the luxurious city in the United Arab Emirates (USA) where he has lived for the last year.
His tone of voice contrasts with panic messages shared on social media by tourists who were trapped in Persian Gulf airports last year February 28 when the war in Iran broke out, and with the calls for help launched by the ‘influencers‘, many of them newly arrived in the city, asking to be rescued.
“In the WhatsApp groups of residents in the area there is unrest because no one knows how the war will evolve, but there is no feeling that the conflict could threaten this model of life. There is too much money invested, too much vested interests“It is in no one’s interest that this goes down,” Fauró analyzed this past Wednesday a few hours after landing in Madrid.
His reflection is shared by many of the 30,000 Spaniards who live in the countries of the Persian Gulf, where they settled in recent years attracted by the succulents business opportunities and the exquisite standard of living offered by cities like Dubai o Abu Dhabi in the USA, or Doha in Qatar.
Also for the feeling of security that their regimes transmit and that is breathed in their streets, but that has been blown up after Iran responded to the attacks by the US and Israel by launching thousands of missiles and drones about the nearby countries that host military bases North Americans or colaboran con Washington in his efforts to overthrow the ayatollah regime.
Smoke plumes in Bahrain after Iranian attack / EFE
Attacks
In the first two weeks of the war, USA has reported four dead and more than a hundred injured after receiving 1,500 Iranian attacks with missiles and drones, some hitting residential blocks or the airport itself. The authorities of Bahrain they have registered nine injured and one deceased since the beginning of the war, after destroying 95 missiles and 165 Iranian drones, and the number of wounded in Qatar already rises one scoremost of them due to falling debris from buildings after suffering a drone collision.
The threat has been increasing as the days go by. After Iran targeted the data centers of North American technological multinationals installed in the area, Nvidia y Amazon temporarily closed their offices in Dubai and this Wednesday, a few hours after the US bombed a bank headquarters in Tehranthe Iranian military command declared “military objective” the offices of American banks located in neighboring countries and recommended that their inhabitants not approach them “less than a kilometer.”
This panorama contrasts with the idea that the people had in their heads. millions of professionals of high level that in recent years the countries of the Persian Gulf as a place of residence and work.
Financiers, engineers, executives, product developers, influencers, digital nomads… It is the mecca of expats of the global economy, to the point that in countries like the Emirates and Qatar, around 90% of the population is foreign.
Paid for by him oil money and with the effort of the cheap labor arrival from Asia, they and their pharaonic designs have made a reality luxury urban delirium and power in the middle of the desert that surpasses itself every year. Here is the tallest building in the world – the Burj Khalifa in Dubai – the artificial island more extensive on the planet – the Palm Jebel Alí, shaped like a palm tree, located on the Dubai coast – and in January the Dubai Gold District was presented, a project to allocate the gold business an entire neighborhood of the most populous city in the USA, with four million inhabitants. The enclave will have a completely lined with precious metal.
Logistics hub
But not everything is facade and glare in the overwhelming cities of the gulf. Here is one of the main logistics centers on the planet – 350 million travelers make a stopover every year en route between Asia and the West at the airports of Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi – and the area has become a financial and commercial ‘hub’ unique in the world.
“If you are in business on a global scale, this is the place where you should be. No other site offers so many facilities to find partners, close agreements and launch projects,” he acknowledges. Ángel Gómez de Ágredaa soldier in the reserve who has lived and worked for a year and a half in Doha as a representative of a Spanish logistics company with military uses.
He is not the only one: even 230 large Spanish companiesamong some of the most sought-after on the Ibex, have offices with their own staff in Emiratesfrom where they launch important investments in the area and around the world in sectors such as infrastructure, logistics, services or gastronomy.
Attracted by its economic potential, Eric Fauró settled in Dubai in the spring of 2025. In Spain he worked as financial software consultant for a multinational, but in the Emirati city he has worked as a real estate agent, a sector that is in full swing today in the area.
“There are many foreigners, among them many Spaniards, buying houses in Emirates as an investment because the return is very high,” he points out, although he recognizes that the great attractiveness of the business model of the Gulf countries is “taxes”or rather its absence. In Emirates there is no personal income tax nor corporate tax – only 9% is paid when net profits exceed 95,000 euros – and consumption is assessed at a basic VAT of 5%. Everything else is profit.
Eric Fauró (real estate agent in Dubai) / EPC
There is no sense that the conflict could threaten this model of life. There is too much money invested, it is in no one’s interest if this goes down.
Can the Iran war end this goose that lays the golden eggs? Fauró doubts this: “Here people have blind faith in the authorities and in their capacity for international influence so that this business model keep running and generating money”he affirms, and puts as proof the evolution of the real estate sector since the war began: in the first week of March, 3,500 home purchase and sale transactions were closed, worth almost 3,000 million euros, according to the Dubai Land Department. Among them, on March 6, one of the most succulent operations of the season was closed: a exclusive apartment located in the penthouse of the Aman Residence complex sold by 100 million euros.
The return home of the young Spanish consultant does not respond to war, but for personal reasons, and it was scheduled weeks ago – he returns “happy to have met the two Dubaisthat of luxury and that of Asian workers,” he says -, but the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims to have removed 6,000 compatriots on special flights since Iranian drones and missiles began to fall.
Returns
“The majority of these travelers are family members of professionals there are settled here, but there is no news of companies that have decided to dismantle the business and leave, at least for now,” he warns. Gómez de Ágreda. In the opinion of this former soldier, who has just published the essay ‘A global world’ about the new world order, conflict can have a positive long-term effect: “If the result of war is a Iran without aggressive capacitythe region will benefit as a place of business,” he predicts. But he warns: “If the country of the ayatollahs becomes a failed statethe area will become very dangerous.”
Ángel Gómez de Ágreda / José Luis Roca
“If the result of the war is an Iran without aggressive capabilities, the region will benefit as a place of business, but if it becomes a failed state, the area will become very dangerous.”
In the short term, what these cities do not have today is the tourist attraction that they treasured. Intercontinental flights already they do not stopover in its airports and the rooms of its luxurious hotels are offered for the tenth from its usual price.
No one is able to predict how long the war will last or what its outcome will be, but Jesus Navarro AlberolaCEO of the Alicante spice company Carmencita, believes that what has happened in these two weeks is enough for the area to have lost one of its charms, “the feeling of security”.
He speaks with knowledge of the facts: he has been traveling to the Middle East since the 80s and has witnessed its evolution firsthand. “I started dealing with Arab merchants who offered their products on carpets on the sand and today they do it in luxurious offices,” he compares.
Jesús Navarro, owner of Carmencita / Fernando Bustamante
Whatever happens with the war, the paradigm of the Persian Gulf as a dream refuge for the rich and powerful from around the world has been shattered. Here nothing will be the same again
Apart from buying 3,000 kilos of saffron To Iranians every year, the infusions that Navarro sells are the most consumed in teapots throughout the Gulf. Today he has a correspondent in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, which is not planned to be moved because, after all, “eating and drinking tea is something that continues to be done during wars.” In fact, its sales have grown in the last two weeks “due to the food stockpiling effect.”
However, the businessman is clear that there are a before and after on February 28 in this place: “Whatever happens with the war, the paradigm of the Persian Gulf as dream refuge for rich and powerful people around the world it has gone bankrupt. Nothing will be the same here again,” he predicts.
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