You seem to be missing the point, which is about its political subordination to a larger entity. What I was attempting to correct was (possible) ignorance of the existence of the UAE.

Here are the first two sentences of my link (emphasis added):

Dubai (/duːˈbaɪ/ doo-by; Arabic: دبيّ‎ Dubayy, IPA: [dʊˈbæj]) is the most populous city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the second largest emirate by territorial size after the capital, Abu Dhabi.[3] Dubai is located on the southeast coast of the Persian Gulf and is one of the seven emirates that make up the country

For all that an "emirate" may be similar to a "principality" (or, dare I say, a "count-y"), the fact remains that the political status of Dubai is different from that of e.g. the principality of Monaco, in the sense that Monaco is an independent country, and Dubai isn't.

Dimensions along which Dubai is more similar to Singapore than Istanbul aren't relevant to this point. (If someone pointed out that California was part of the United States, you wouldn't argue with them by saying that it's the seventh largest economy in the world [or whatever] and therefore "empirically clusters" with countries rather than states.)