WI the rest of the middle east copies the United Arab Emirates?

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Presume that starting in the late 1960s/early 1970s that the oil producing areas of the middle east, Lebanon, Syria and Iran all got leadership as development focused as the United Arab emirates has in our world. If you need a Mcguffin. Does having a developmentally focused leadership in more middle eastern states besides the UAE change anything??

[Colin]

Well focusing on building a business and tourism sector is much easier in a country of 500,000 than in a country like Iran where you have 60,000,000. As for other small Arab nations doing this it's already happening. Qatar, Bahrain and the other emirates are trying to follow Dubai's lead. However for large nations like Iran, Iraq, or Saudi Arabia they are too large and too unwieldy to really try to turn their economies into a more diversified base.

It could be done, I guess, in a larger country you just wouldn't have the results that you would in Dubai. Plus there would still be a large underclass, just as there is in the foreign population in Dubai, which would still be prime pickings for Islamists, Arab nationalists, and anti-Western groups.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

I knew it wouldn't be as dramatic as for Dubai but does my idea have any effects at all?

[Colin]

I knew it wouldn't be as dramatic as for Dubai but does my idea have any effects at all?

Well not really. You'd still have a wealthy upperclass dependent upon the toiling of incredibly low-wage labour, just as they now are in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. So you would still have the large income inequality in the Gulf States that you have now, the only exception is that now they're building hotels and banks as well as oil wells.

[kashifsakhan]

I knew it wouldn't be as dramatic as for Dubai but does my idea have any effects at all?

I'm sure it would have SOME effect, but they wouldnt be huge.

Dubai has always been more liberal than the rest of the region (expect perhaps Lebanon), but Dubai only started pushing themselves as a tourist destination about 6-7 years ago. I remember before that it was like almost any other city in any other oil rich middle eastern country.