When I was young, war in the Middle East was a story on TV. Unfamiliar place names flashing by on the nine o’clock news. Baghdad, Gaza, Beirut. The casualty figures the anchor read out vanished like smoke, too.
For the past two and a half years, I have been visiting the region at least once a month. Now we have employees in Abu Dhabi, business partners, and friends I share meals with.
Foreign nationals make up 90% of the UAE’s population. People of more than 200 nationalities live there together. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, the Philippines, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen. Of every ten people you pass on the streets of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, most come from another country. Many of them have family in places where missiles are now flying back and forth. One of my closest friends there, who invited me to his wedding, is from Beirut, Lebanon.
When the numbers in the news become names, and the names become faces, tragedy no longer disappears when you change the channel.
Once you get that close, easy judgments become harder to make. For some, this war will add another layer of prejudice against the countries and people of this region. Having seen up close how one side’s justice becomes the other side’s tragedy, I find that the more connected I am, the less I say. Someone who can easily take a side probably has not yet encountered enough context.
Everywhere, people are declaring that the age of AGI has arrived, but this remarkable technology is proving useful in war. AI calculates missile trajectories, and algorithms optimize drone routes. Yet the nature of conflict is the same as it was thousands of years ago. Land, resources, identity, revenge. There is one question. Could it be used to resolve conflicts rather than destroy? Could an intelligence that can process hundreds of millions of variables at once find an agreement, and a form of governance, that both sides can accept?
There is a reason that question does not feel abstract. The UAE is not a direct party to this war. It neither started nor wanted it. Yet missiles and drones are now flying toward Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Since February 28, Iran has launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at the UAE alone. A drone fell next to a hotel on Palm Jumeirah, a fire broke out at Jebel Ali Port, and Dubai International Airport ordered an evacuation. Those killed were Pakistani, Nepali, and Bangladeshi. People who had nothing to do with this war.
The Gulf states are taking hits. The UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman. Countries that share a border with Iran or sit just across the water. These countries have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in defense, and have in fact intercepted nearly every missile and drone. It is not that they lack the ability to strike back. In a joint statement, the six GCC countries explicitly reserved their right to self-defense. And yet they do not fire. Even as missiles strike, they are doing everything they can to hold back, to avoid being dragged into the war. Their situation rarely makes the news. Headlines shine a light on those fighting, not those holding back.
I was on my way to those holding back. On Saturday the 28th, aboard a flight bound for Abu Dhabi, I heard that war had broken out between the United States and Iran. The plane returned to the gate. There was little I could do on board, but I did one thing. Through Zeon, my first AI agent, I opened a Telegram breaking-news channel for people I knew in the region. The plane had turned back, but the tragedy unfolding where I had been heading kept streaming in. Even sitting in Seoul, 7,000 kilometers from the war zone, anxiety does not keep its distance.
UAE Emergency News KRYou can view and join @uae_emergency_news right away.Telegram · t.meOpen
Since then, Zeon has been organizing information about the war on its own. Before I knew it, the channel that had been pouring out breaking news was posting six organized cards every ten minutes. A war briefing and risk score, a timeline chart of conflict in the Gulf, trends in direct threats to the UAE, a conflict map of the entire Middle East, a zoomed-in map of the UAE, updates on air traffic over the Strait of Hormuz, and more.
It is a small start, but I do not want to stop here. When the war ends, I want to build something more meaningful for the region with my agents. Restoring broken information networks and connecting people who have been isolated. Helping technology advance and spread civilization, rather than destroy it.
May peace come soon.
