The emergence of Yemen and Somalia as havens for the recruitment, training and export of terrorists … hammers home a geopolitical reality we in the United Arab Emirates prefer not to dwell upon.

We live in a very rough neighborhood.

Consider this map of the region … which is generally considered the Middle East. (Though this map includes Pakistan, which usually is considered “south Asia” or “the subcontinent,” along with India and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka … as well as four of the “stans” — Uzbekistan, etc. — that often are deemed “central Asia.”)

The map brings it home: Chaos, terror bombings and quasi civil wars are just barely over the horizon in this part of the world — where we sit in our Western-style newspaper office, industriously fact-checking and writing headlines and sipping tea. In a peaceful, orderly nation.

Consider.

Belligerent and about-to-be-nuclear-armed Iran, a rival to every Arab state that isn’t Syria, is on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz — which is a mere 30 miles wide, from the shores of Iran to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. You can stand on the northern shore of the UAE and, just about, spit on Iran. (And some of the locals may think it a good idea.)

Beyond Iran is Afghanistan. Abu Dhabi is less than 1,000 miles from Kabul. Or about the same distance Los Angeles is from Portland, Oregon. Last month, when several UN aid workers were murdered by a suicide bomber in Kabul, the survivors were brought out through Dubai — another UAE emirate and about 80 miles up the road from Abu Dhabi.

Next to Iran and Afghanistan is Pakistan, where civilians are killed almost daily. The distance from Abu Dhabi to Karachi is about 1,250 miles. Two hours and change by plane.

And the nearest borders of both Pakistan and Afghanistan are much closer than are their capitals. By several hundred miles.

Then, to the south of us is Yemen, which seems to be on the verge of joining Somalia as a “failed state.” Yemen’s capital of Sana’a is 900 miles from Abu Dhabi. Oh, and Yemen is where the family of Osama bin Laden is from.

Next to Yemen is Saudi Arabia, which has been in a shooting semi-war with Yemeni rebels who the Saudis seem to believe are funded and armed by Iran. We could be at the Saudi border in a matter of an hour or two, by car. By plane, we could be over the contested mountainous area straddling Yemen and Saudi … in maybe a half-hour.

Up the Gulf is Iraq. Iraq has been in all the papers for, oh, the past 30 years. During which it fought two wars with U.S.-led coalitions and a savagely bloody war with Iran in the early 1980s. (When Saddam really did use WMDs.)

The Iraqi port city of Basra is 570 miles away from Abu Dhabi. Or less than the distance from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.

Beyond Iraq is Syria, instinctively hostile to the West and generally regarded to be a patron of Hezbollah, which is a powerful force in Lebanon and is considered to be a terror sponsor, by the United States. And just south of Lebanon are Israel and the Palestinian enclaves, where violence could erupt at any moment.

And Somalia is in Africa, not the Middle East. But it’s not exactly a long haul from here. Somalia is the failed state of the 21st century, with warlords of various stripes fighting over an impoverished dump where piracy is the preferred economic activity among heavily armed young men.

We are 1,650 miles from Mogadishu, capital (such as it is) of Somalia. That is, about the same distance as Los Angeles is from Chicago.

Americans sometimes have trouble grasping what it is like to have violence and chaos on their borders. Because it so rarely has happened in the history of the country. The U.S. always has had the buffer of oceans east and west, and a peaceful Canada to the north (aside from the War of 1812) and a fairly stable (certainly by Middle East standards) Mexico to the south.

In the UAE, the proximity of rogue nations, failed nations and bandits with guns and grudges can be measured in minutes. It is a sobering thought.

Usually, we manage to banish it.