Why Abu Dhabi? If you're really going for an "international" school, why wouldn't you pick somewhere a bit more stable? If neutrality is key, then I'd choose someplace like Geneva.
It's a university administrator's dream.
Also, U of Waterloo now has an Engineering campus in Dubai. http://www.uae.uwaterloo.ca/ It caused quite the discussion when I was in school at the time.
Also, the surrounding area is torn apart by a never-ending war.
Unlike most other gulf states, Abu Dhabi has actually been diversifying it's economy for years. According to Wikipeda, _non oil and gas GDP now constitutes 64% of the UAE’s total GDP_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Dhabi#Economy
its social policies remain incompatible with many of the major countries of today
Perhaps, but it's certainly more liberal than most of it's neighbors. I would have thought an international university could act as a factor to improve that as well.
the surrounding area is torn apart by a never-ending war
It's about 600km from Iraq. That's very roughly the same distance Los Angles is from the Mexican drug wars - where more people are being killed than Iraq at the moment.