UAE is best understood as an international haven (tax, airline passenger routing, container transboarding) operated by expats (the fearful rich from authoritarian countries, westerners administrating an EMEA operation, workers from India), and controlled by Emiratis (100% of police, judiciary, government decision-taking)

They represent only 20% of the population in their own country (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriates_in_the_United_Ar....)

So, it makes no sense engaging the volatile expat population in this project, and they just don't have the critical human resources to do it within their population.

They do like vanity projects, though.

See also: Burj Khalifa, Palm Jumeirah, Mall with a ski slope, Mall with a whale aquarium, etc

Source: did an internship in this quite weird place

Mostly right except Indians and Pakistanis make up most of the police force, business owners and government workers as well.

Oh yeah. Definitely doing the decision-taking but not the decision-executing.