For clarity, I routinely train Navy/USAF/NATO pilots White Sands, various locations in Nevada, El Paso, San Diego, and am strangely in tune with New Mexico, having been all over the state and the SW USA in general.
It reminds me of home, replete with leftist who came in and ate now screwing everything up.
The American southwest is definitely a bit like parts of the middle east, Spain, etc. I have not yet seen anything in the southwest which was as desolate as Jordan east and south of the Dead Sea though. Maybe Death Valley or the Bonneville salt flats?