"Oil-rich" and poor

As it is now becoming more and more apparent through coverage of the unrest in the Middle East, an "oil-rich" country certainly doesn't mean its people are rich. Unequal wealth distribution in the Middle East is behind much of the recent turmoil. Often, in "oil rich" countries, only a few share the wealth. Libya and a lot of other countries in the Middle East are often described as being "oil rich." And somehow leaders always find ways to enrich themselves. But what about the average citizen? Libya has had steady income from oil for 60 years yet for the average Libyan, oil has not really been an enormous blessing. There hasn't been the kind of real trickle-down effect. But in both Libya and Saudi Arabia oil wealth has mostly been used by the elite to consolidate power. Seventy-five percent of Libyans work for the state. That does provide an enormous amount of patronage and power to the state. Is Saudi Arabia anything like Alaska, where every resident gets a check with a cut of the state's oil largess? Saudis don't have a direct deposit into their checking account. But everybody in the kingdom understands that what they're after is a little slice of that oil revenue that comes into the kingdom, and they're entirely dependent on the royal family to make sure they get it. Patronage takes different shapes.

To protect its vital oil supplies the USA and other Western countries have backed the ruling royal family in Saudi Arabia. The United States has made every effort to ensure that it remains close to the ruling family and is perceived to be so by all Saudis particularly those who loath the regime. The United States is also rightly seen to be close to Israel, so Saudi dissidents such as Osama bin Laden had no difficulty identifying the US as the number one enemy, particularly when they saw that the Saudi royal family would collapse without US support. The Saudi Government is just as repressive and misogynist as the Taliban. The reward for US abasement and abandonment of human rights in the Gulf has been to try and maintain an influence over Saudi and Gulf States oil policy, which has waxed and waned. Paradoxically for the US support for repressive Arab regimes led to the growth of a fundamentalist response which has taken root in other Muslim countries. Why is the US is fighting the Taliban and succouring the Saudis? The answer is oil. Secondly, these countries have been excellent customers of expensive and often sophisticated Western weapons systems. They are good for the arms business.

There is plenty of scope for unrest to develop inside Saudi Arabia. The population is just over 27 million. 7.5 million people are guest workers from Bangladesh, China, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam; they are poorly paid and treated. Female domestic assistants are particularly badly treated with claims of abuse ranging from deprivation of liberty to beatings and torture and all too often rape. Ten to 15 per cent of the population are Shiite Muslims who have little time for the Wahabis. The ruling male oligarchy including the royal family are sitting on a well of discontent numbering some 19.5 million people. And it is no better in the Gulf States where in Kuwait, 60 per cent of the population of three million are guest workers and 85 per cent of the population in the United Arab Emirates are guest workers. Having said all of this, overthrowing a brutal and heavily armed dictator is still not easy.

Nevertheless, the limitations of US influence have been exposed, the foundation of its foreign policy in the Middle East is in turmoil ; it sits mesmerised, transfixed, frustrated, and impotent. The US's global pre-eminence depends upon its strategic control of Middle East oil. This strategic control is at odds with the aspirations of the Arab peoples. Hence the US's problem with democracy in the Middle East. If the regimes are swept away and some form of democracy replaces them, US power will likely be critically undermined.