Gulf's collaborative colonialism is here to stay

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-04-210214.html



Gulf's collaborative colonialism is here to stay
By Hossein Askari
Feb 21, '14

Oil and the Persian Gulf are words that are almost inseparable. It is tough to mention one without the other. Over the past 75 or so years, most significant developments in the region are in some way related to oil - inefficient institutions, the absence of the rule of law, corruption, economic failure, wars and conflicts, foreign interference, foreign relations, and more.

How did the countries of the Persian Gulf end up this way? How have the political, religious, and social structures of these societies affected the way oil has been exploited, and in turn, how has oil affected these societies - their human, political, and economic development and their relations with the outside world?

Before the discovery of vast quantities of oil in the Persian Gulf, the countries (or in some cases sheikhdoms) were poor (especially those that had few non-oil natural resources, such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), politically and socially backward, and looked to the West for direction and guidance. Great Britain and France treated them as de facto colonies - controlling their every move and exploiting their oil resources for their own benefit.

Today, nearly a century later, the countries of the region are much the same but with a facade of unimaginable wealth and ostentatious living on the part of rulers and their supporters - especially in the countries that have extraordinary per capita oil (and natural gas) wealth.