UAE academic: Gulf countries rule the Arab world

Oil giants in the Gulf are the hubs of the Arab world and control it as the region is witnessing “a Gulf moment”, an Emirati academic has said.

Professor of Political Science Abdulkhaleq Abdulla told The Economist: “The smallest Gulf state has more influence than the biggest Arab state.”

According to the magazine, “the GCC accounts for about 60% of the Arab world’s GDP but only 12% of its population (or half that, excluding foreign workers).”

In an audio recording leaked in 2015, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and his advisers are heard dismissing the monarchies as mere “half-states” with so much money that they treat it “like rice”. However he, like other rulers in the region, has swayed to the whims of the Gulf leaders who have bankrolled his march to power.

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