Right, so you can tell your gold-plated security plan is going well when the big idea is to put the oil tanks inside a giant hamster cage. Because that is exactly what you are looking at here. Huge steel-and-mesh structures have been built around fuel-storage tanks in the United Arab Emirates, including near Dubai International Airport. Cages. Around the fuel. The UAE has spent years selling itself as the safe part of the Gulf. Dubai is where you change planes, move your money, buy the apartment, host the conference and pretend the rest of the region exploding is happening at a comfortable distance away. Why else would you get great British patriots like Reform UK’s Richard Tice setting up home there to serve the people of Skegness from?

Abu Dhabi has the oil, the sovereign wealth, the American military relationship, the Israel normalisatio ...