In the Mideast, oil or nothing?

With the world’s third largest gas reserves, Qatar can afford plenty of real estate excesses as well as more admirable investments in education, a science park and a television channel – Al Jazeera – that challenges the intellectual and political stagnation of the Arab world as much as it confronts the hegemonistic assumptions of the West.

But can ideas as well as money spread beyond the oil-rich enclaves of the Gulf to spur a region which, despite oil, has lagged behind most others in social and economic development?

..What the region needs is a combination of oil money, manufacturing expertise and access to rich-country markets. But there is scant sign of it. With the exception of Turkey, neither European nor Asian investors have done much to take advantage of such preferential access to Europe as the region enjoys.

International Herald Tribune