Sultan Qaboos is dead (user search)
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  Sultan Qaboos is dead (search mode)
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Author Topic: Sultan Qaboos is dead  (Read 1410 times)
Lord Halifax
Sr. Member
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Posts: 2,304
Papua New Guinea


« on: January 13, 2020, 10:48:50 AM »

I'm going to interrupt the lovefest on a Middle Eastern absolute monarch and say RIP, HP.
Thank you. He was an autocratic despot that suppressed the Omani people twice, once in the 70s and again during the Arab Spring. Are all you people gushing over Qaboos going to say the same about Gaddafi?

I'm not usually one who buys into the "strongman being necessary for the development of his country" trope, and I think it's untrue in most cases, examples being Park Chung-hee and Lee Kuan Yew. However, in my opinion Qaboos is an exception. He could've chosen to be like his father and done nothing to better the country, but instead he proved himself to be far better than he had any right to be. The internal improvements he made to Oman are obvious and well-known, but he also distinguished himself internationally by maintaining a position of neutrality and serving as a mediator in many instances. He refused to get Oman involved in proxy wars, and played a crucial role as an intermediary during the Iran Nuclear Deal negotiations. Also, unlike the other Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE, Oman isn't a filthy rich petrostate, built off the backs of abused migrant workers, that uses its cash to fund terrorism. The Middle East would be a much better place if there were more rulers like Qaboos in charge.
A Democratic Oman would have done the same, without spending the people’s money on royal yahts And having one of the highest defense spending % in the world, nor would they have suppressed the movement of Oman further into a better era.

Your claim that migrants aren’t doing the brunt of the backbreaking work in Oman are also false.

What makes you say that? At this point, the only countries in the Middle East that can conceivably be called 'democratic' are Israel and Lebanon, and both have governments that are dens of corruption and dysfunction.

Tunisia, or are you not counting them as "Middle East"?

North Africa is not in the Middle East, apart from Egypt.
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