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Comment by douche | Hacker News Reader

Before they were western protectorates, they were Ottoman protectorates. It's been a mess for a long, long time. Once the oil runs out, or we move beyond oil, the whole region will be relegated to the kind of backwater it became after the advent of world-wide oceanic shipping in the age of sail and the overland trade routes were superseded.

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The Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire were not protectorates, they were full provinces of the Ottoman Empire and as much a core part of the empire as the Balkans or Anatolia. The regions of Tunisia, Algeria, and Tripolitania were largely closer to independent vassal or client states; Egypt was effectively an autonomous fief, particularly during the 19th century (by WWI it was more a part of the British Empire than the Ottoman Empire). Crimea and Hungary were always tributaries rather than full vassals.

In general, the Arabs were happy subjects of the Ottoman Empire until around 1900-1914, when the CUP's political program attempted to marginalize the Arabs; even then, the Arab Revolt was a very narrow revolt with support almost exclusively from the Hejaz (western Saudi Arabia in modern terms) Prior to that, the Ottoman Empire was generally very supportive of the Arab cultural expression. While the governors of the Syrian and Egyptian provinces tended to be problematic from the point of view of the Sultan, the populations of those provinces were far less prone to revolt than Anatolia.

This is more or less true however, it's important to note that the Ottoman Empire spanned for many centuries and the Empire and its rule (administratively or otherwise) looked very different in the 16th century than in the 19th century. Egypt was under direct control in the beginning, it rebelled, then turned into a feudal system and then it became pretty much autonomous. Empires change a lot over time that its really hard to capture centuries worth of history in a few sentences (hence the generalisations).

Once the oil stops being important (Just Another Commodity like, e.g. iron ore), life will probably improve for citizens of the middle east:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

We'll stop meddling and making things worse. The leaders of those countries won't be able to substitute oil wealth for popular support or funnel money into pushing Wahhabism.

It's the best thing that could happen to them.

It's the best thing that could happen to them.

... In the long term.

In the short term, it's going to be very, very bad for them indeed, as the sole source of foreign exchange goes away and the ordinary folks find themselves abandoned in a climate-change-drought-crippled land that has become populated well above its agricultural carrying capacity, and the elite jets off to enjoy their stolen wealth in Switzerland.

> In the short term, it's going to be very, very bad for them indeed

It's not like they would not see it coming. Petrol is eventually going to become too expensive at some point, and they should invest accordingly. But numerous past examples of countries relying on raw resources have shown they usually don't adapt and plan, so I don't have too much hope in their case either.

Who is this "they" you speak of (who can't see it coming)?

The rulers are doing fine -- they've got armies and secret police and offshore investments so that when things turn to shit they can just jet off into exile like the Shah of Iran.

The ordinary folks don't have the money and they don't have the oil, they stay quiet for now because they don't want to be imprisoned or executed and because the rulers spend a small chunk of their surplus on social security.

In other words, the people with money to invest don't care, and the folks who might care are in no position to take action.

That the problem is foreseeable doesn't make it less tragic.

I can see that happening to Saudi Arabia but not the middle east as a whole. A lot of them don't really see the benefit of the oil wealth (especially in surrounding 'pipeline' countries that don't have oil), they only get to deal with the fallout.

> in a climate-change-drought-crippled land that has become populated well above its agricultural carrying capacity

There was a recent HN article about Israel's progress with desalination[1]. Obvious funding issues aside, I wonder if that approach could ease some of the water issues?

Perhaps that kind of investment would be a good use for the oil income, whilst they've still got it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12191089

Fortunately some countries (like Saudi Arabia) are making steps to reduce their dependency on oil, because they can see the coming problems if they don't.

To their descendants, maybe.

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