Sultan Qaboos is dead

[America Needs R'hllor]

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.

I'm actually willing to defend the defense spending (pun unintended), given Oman's very important strategic location, as well as the fact its' in rather dangerous neighbourhood.

I don't think we can truly predict how would a democratic Oman act, but I agree about the danger of perpetuating the notion that strongmen are somehow a necessary or desirable precondition for development. And Qaboos was indeed a ruthless despot, and had no qualms against using his peoples' money for personal pleasures.

Yeah, basically why I recommended both HenryWallace's and Nathan's posts. Sultan Qaboos was certainly an overall net positive influence on the region, and was better than other Sultans would be for his country, but he can't be described as a good person, or, indeed, a very contradictory "freedom fighter".