World: Profiling the Gulf States

Vast riches and growing pains for the Arab sheikdoms

For 550 miles, from the Shatt-al-Arab in Iraq to the Musandam peninsula in Oman, a shallow, aquamarine trough of water glistens under the brutal sun—the Persian, or Arabian Gulf, depending on the side of the water on which one stands. On either shore, the Arabian and Iranian plateaus form some of the most uninviting landscape anywhere: endless vistas of desert and rock, so desolate that in one stretch in Saudi Arabia it is known as Rub'al Khali—the Empty Quarter.

Along the gulfs shores and in its waters, nature has left vast underground pools of oil controlled today by Iran and seven Arab states. With a total estimated population of 24 million and a daily oil production of 17 million bbl., the gulf states alone have the power to hold the industrial world for ransom.

There is no indication that any one of them has the desire or feels the need to do so. Compared with the convulsions plaguing Iran, the atmosphere on the Arab side of the gulf is relatively calm. Business is good. Oil money has brought riches beyond imagination. Black ribbons of tarmac connect capitals of concrete and glass that have mushroomed where small fishing and pearling villages stood little more than a decade ago.

Yet the tranquil facade cannot conceal the fact that the gulf has become a focal point of geopolitical tension. The demise of Iran as a regional superpower has left the area in a vacuum; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has stirred fear. If the vision of a clash between Moscow and Washington over oil is the ultimate nightmare of gulf leaders, Iran's revolution has raised immediate concerns over regional rivalry and internal stability.

The upheaval in Iran has also taught gulf rulers that building on the wealth brought by oil is not enough. Modernization must be coupled with social and political reform. Most of the states have created far-reaching social welfare programs and give education high priority. But a higher standard of living and better education could lead to demands for greater political participation; though the leadership remains accessible through the majlis, the traditional consultation process between ruler and ruled, such consensus politics may not suffice for much longer. The rise of fundamentalist Islam as a political movement in Iran is not lost on the sheiks and emirs. At least two states—Kuwait and Bahrain—plan to revive consultative assemblies soon, while Saudi Arabia is in the process of forming a new assembly that will hold its first elections in the next year or two.

Moreover, hundreds of thousands of foreign workers have descended on the gulf states to perform tasks too technical or too demeaning for gulf Arabs to do themselves. Yemenis, Pakistanis, Taiwanese, Thais and Filipinos clean the streets, serve in restaurants and manage hotels—a large and disquieting foreign presence. Educated Egyptians and Palestinians occupy key professional posts, even serving as top advisers to heads of state. The Palestinian diaspora, estimated to be 400,000 through the gulf, has been the major factor in the gulf states' refusal—Oman is the exception—to support the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Brief Baedekers on the Arab gulf nations: