Arab welfare states... Strategy Page has a good summary of how Saudi Arabia and other Arab states have become utterly dependent on foreign workers to keep their countries running. The confluence of oil wealth, dictatorships (sometimes, as in Saudi Arabia, falsely dressed as monarchies), and a population trained to believe themselves superior has put them in a position where the loss of oil revenues would likely lead to the implosion of their political systems – and there's no obvious solution in sight.
As I've frequently told a friend of mine who's interested in the Middle East: it's a far more complex situation over there than most Americans have any inkling of. There are no easy answers to the awful tensions there – and there may not be any non-military answers, either...
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