The Strait of Hommus

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates--The shipping agent from Bombay lowers his teacup and whispers. "I know a vessel that leaves the Gulf tonight," he says. "From the Dubai Creek at three. If there is no Iranian trouble, you will reach the Strait of Hormuz after dawn."

Outside his office, along the creek that winds through Dubai and into the Persian Gulf, Iranian traders are unloading pistachios and Persian carpets, ferried illicitly from Bandar Abbas. Outgoing sailors pile their teakwood dhows with Marlboros, Levis, and Panasonic boom boxes for the 12-hour return to Iran.

"You have never met me and do not know my name," says the agent, who traffics this night in contraband reporter. "I do this for you only, as a favor." He nods his head toward the door.

I have come to Dubai like a thousand other journalists to see the war firsthand. It is here, in an oil-rich port 50 miles from Iranian territory, where shellshocked supertankers limp in for repairs. It is in Dubai, too, that television networks rent helicopters for $2,000 an hour, to hover above the water for shots of Iranian speedboats and burning oil rigs.

But at the creek in Dubai, there is another Persian Gulf, one that doesn't often appear in nightly newscasts or geopolitical thinking. Each night, a workday fleet of fishing trawlers, traders, and supply boats jostle for moorings between shifts on the open water. Every war has them, little people, caught in the crossfire. I joined a supply boat carrying dried goods to ships off the coast of Fujairah. Through the eyes of the crew the conflict looks completely different.

The dockside customs official weighs my passpor and visa in his hand, barely glancing at their contents. "Your papers, I think maybe they are not in order," he says, looking as if he might bite one corner to test for counterfeit.

I force a smile. "Perhaps I have cause some inconvenience by arriving at this late hour." Flowery language is the Muzak of Arab officialdom. "Gertain arrangements of a financial kind can...."

"...Please, no," the man says, his face wrinkling in disgust. Here in the world's wealthiest nation, even to offer a bribe is insulting. He waves toward the water.

by Tony Horwitz