The Blessing and Curse of Oil in the Middle Eastern States (Other (Not Listed) Sample)

The Blessing and Curse of Oil in the Middle Eastern States
Name
Institution
The Blessing and Curse of Oil in the Middle Eastern States
The Middle Eastern region is one of the most unstable regions in the society today. Part of its instability is because of outside disturbances of outsiders attracted by oil. (Duicker 2013). When the Middle East first discovered oil, it was a major breakthrough in terms of development and wealth in this arid region. One would not be wrong to think that if it were not for oil Middle East, the geographical and historical importance of this area would have been insignificant to the world. In 1918 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a new mystery for oil products emerged. This is because the powerful Britain and France began demarcating the region to protect their economic and political interest in the area.
For selfish reasons, these imperial powers vouched for corrupt leaders to lead the newly established states. From that time, the Middle East has never known peace and stability since the countries in that region under the government of military rule. However, the area has taken a turn for the worst with the growth of anti-Western sentiments, and Islamic has taken stage with the onset of oil discovery. Despite the fact that the Middle East has half of the world's oil reserves, the region's economy is still dwindling as it depends on imports of foreign goods and services. Economists believe that even with the vast natural resources, their political turmoil and surprisingly oil is the primary reason why the region lags behind other nations that lack such resources. They contend that for this Arab region and many other regions that have these vast natural resources cannot develop doe to the resource curse.
It is remarkable to observe that those countries that have fewer natural resources are growing much faster than those that have these vast resources. For instance in the Middle East, most of the oil is tapped and processed by foreign firms in the sense that this region depends on external expertise and equipment to exploit the resource. The fact that a region can have vast resource also has a high living standard remains a puzzle. Askari (2006) Posits that an optimist views possession of oil as an unqualified blessing while a pessimist views the posseion of the resource as a predictable curse. However, to a realist, oil just like any other thing on earth could be both a curse and a blessing.
The reason why oil should be a blessing is the easy way that the resource converts into a foreign earner. In Iran for instance, with the advent of the oil revolution, the revenues increased insanely with the export of the resource. The advantage was that with the export of large amounts of oil came in large amounts of revenue at its disposal. This meant that it had plenty of money to spend on the economy and the infrastructure. However, not only has the oil curse in the Middle East fueled underdevelopment and uprisings, it has contributed to political instability. Talk about authoritarian governments that disrespect people's rights, liberties, and democracy in general. The situation is in that with the fluctuation of the oil a price also leads to an unstable political situation in the Middle East. Critics have been of the opinion that there is never a time when oil and democracy go hand in hand. With this natural resource comes the wealth divide in that those who are capable of manipulating the system get excessively wealth, while the masses dwell in poverty. Essentially, the level of unaccountability in this situation is synonymous with corruption and hence the inequality in wealth distribution. Subsequently, royal families who happen to use oil as a tool of domination rule most of the Middle East States.
Consequently, one of the key reasons why the Middle Eastern States still remain underdeveloped is the dependence on the export of Oil that finances a larger portion of the national's revenue. For instance in Kuwait, Oil revenue facilitates 50 percent of the national income. Now, the dependence on oil revenue is an intricate situation in the sense that the demand for the product dictates oil export revenue. The price of oil always fluctuates and this means that at a time when the price for this commodity swings low, then the national revenues for these Middle East countries also get affected. This in turn affects the government's policies. Critics of resource curse have argued that any policies that are subjective to decision accrued from exploitation of natural resources are likely to be having negative effects. Furthermore, some of the effects such as poor governance, and suppression of the liberties of masses lead to exploitation of the natural resource. The effects are cyclical in nature. Principally, the more oil exploitation rakes in revenues in the country, the stronger an autocratic government is made.
When it comes to development of human resource, the effects of the oil curse runs thick. Most of the students that live in the Middle East prefer to study Social and liberal arts as opposed to technical education, which is important for development of a country. With the culture that emanates from the Middle East, there are lesser local employees. Most employees are foreign expatriates who work in this field. Worse still, the locals expect payment in top dollar from their non-skilled labor.
Essentially, one is likely to observe the extravagance that the elites display in the Middle East States by the elites who control the revenue accrued from oil. Rather than spend the income from oil to build their infrastructure, the elites prefer to spend the earnings on grandeur as they buy themselves into substantial political positions in the world. On the other hand, the poor masses hold protests every often on poor governance and suppression of their rights by the ruling elite. The elites surround themselves with the military of whom they pay handsomely to protect their vast interests. The resource curse rears its ugly head as the leaders in the Middle East strive to maintain political power by using revenues accrued from oil. Therefore, as long as the revenue from oil trickles in, the state leaders stay on to power and use the same revenue to fragment opposing forces.
Whitaker (2011) posits that the state procure sophisticated weaponry through oil revenues, which has been used to cause civil wars internally, and wars externally....