The Arabs too have been destroyed. Their rulers are corrupt and tyrannical, they have tried and failed with every bad political idea of the west. They have failed, while Asia and Israel have succeeded. Their young men and women have no hope but emigration. They too need a narrative, and the Islamists are providing one.
If that's the cause of the problems with Arabs and Israel - the failure of Arab leadership - then I guess these guys will become great friends with Israel as the become more and more successful, right? Or maybe not....
Rising Gulf
An unprecedented boom is changing the region—and echoing far past its borders.
msnbc.msn.com
Eye of the Storm: Cities like Abu Dhabi and Dubai are prospering in a region where many are dying
By Afshin Molavi
Newsweek International
Aug. 6, 2007 issue - We all know the headlines by now: the Middle East is burning, right? So it seems, as Palestinians and Iraqis wage civil war, Lebanon seethes, Syria and Israel trade barbs and Iran spits defiance. Yet beyond the smoke a very different story is emerging nearby. In the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, times have never been better. Business is booming. And political conflict has become a foreign phenomenon, watched on flat-screen TVs in the air-conditioned living rooms of Doha, Dubai, Kuwait City, Muscat and Riyadh.
It's no exaggeration to say that the oil-rich states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—are enjoying a transformational moment, one that could deeply affect the region if not the world. Buoyed by unprecedented oil prices, these states are awash with cash. In the past five years, they have earned a staggering $1.5 trillion for their petroleum, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF). And there's no end in sight: by the close of 2007, the IIF says, the GCC will have picked up an additional $540 billion, more than the combined exports of Brazil, India, Poland and Turkey
All that green has turned the once backward region into the world's 16th largest economy, according to IIF. And if present trends continue, the GCC zone could become the world's sixth largest by 2030. What's most remarkable, however, is how the new money is being spent. The gulf has experienced oil booms before, but rarely managed to capitalize on them; three decades ago an oil windfall helped states modernize infrastructure and health services, but many leaders blew much of the money on defense or vanity projects, or simply hid profits in Western banks.
Today, by contrast, the gulf's farsighted, business-minded political leaders are joining with their more mature and innovative private sectors to ensure the money is wisely spent. Led by Dubai, which is fast becoming a modern banking and financial-services hub, cities in the region are embracing reform and charting an ambitious agenda for the future. "A new gulf is dawning," says Edmund O'Sullivan, the Dubai-based editorial director of the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED). "And it's moving much faster and smarter than it did in the 1970s."
The revival, says Fareed Mohammed of PFC Energy in Washington, D.C., is due to "excellent macroeconomic policies, strong technocratic capacity, a vastly improved regulatory environment, a private sector willing to both invest and innovate, and strong global links in services." As he notes, "All of these ingredients have come together to support sustainable growth."
Consider: the IIF estimates that $1 trillion of the $1.5 trillion windfall has stayed in GCC states, being spent on imports or development. That's a big improvement on the past, when much money was stashed in Swiss banks or squandered on weapons. True, some of today's spending, especially on the red-hot real-estate market and extravagant tourist projects, has raised concerns. But industrial investments, which are critical to helping the region diversify its economy beyond oil, are rising. |
