Americans are paying through the nose for gasoline, and a heckuva lot of petrol poker chips now reside in banks in the Middle East. That’s a cause for concern and relief.
A country that’s investing its oil wealth in the American Grand Style is Dubai. Smack dab in the middle of the Middle East turmoil, Dubai shapes up as a clone of glitzy America. Although the little oil-rich country churns out a quarter of a million barrels of oil a day, Dubai is attracting tourists so it can derive its entire gross domestic product from non-oil sources.
The plan is to host 15 million tourists by 2010. A theme park alone is anticipated to pull a few hundred thousand visitors a day. Here's the promotional
pitch, straight from Dubai's web site.
"Dubailand is set to be the ultimate entertainment and tourism destination in the world. Committed to entertainment, leisure, adventure and fun, Dubailand will offer attractions that aren't only world-class, but world-firsts. Dubailand has been designed to appeal to the widest tourist segments across gender, age groups, world regions and activity preferences."
That's pretty heady stuff.
Hey, Dubai's theme park amounts to a Disneyland in the desert. Dubailand, a colossal project, will comprise an indoor ski mountain (there will be snow in the desert), and a Pharaohs' Park replete with synthetic pyramids. There will also be hotels, retail shopping malls, cinemas, one of the world’s largest roller coasters, and even an equestrian center. Wow. Glamour. Arabian horses. Big Bucks.
But wait. There's more. Dubailand will include Aviation, Dinosaur, and Motor Racing Worlds, straight out of Disney's notebook. Dubailand will also include a 25,000-seat sports stadium. And, if you're a golfer, head out to an 18-hole championship golf course. If you get sick of it all, you can check into an on-site clinic.
There are plans for semiconductor fabs, too. In fact, Dubai's so-called Internet City
tax-free zone already hosts high-tech companies, including the likes of Intel.
Dubai may very well set the pace for other oil-rich countries in the Middle East. Rather than hoarding its oil income, like Saudi Arabia does (to the detriment of the Saudi middle class and the poverty-stricken lower classes), Dubai is anticipating a boom based on American-style enterprise (and lots of greenbacks in the bank).
If the United States were to use the money squandered in Iraq to build similar theme parks in, say, Mosul, Kandahar, and Gaza, we could rapidly revolutionize the Middle East in a way neither the Saudi oil sheiks nor Osama Bin laden ever dreamed of. It would be the Arabian equivalent of
Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come.
Comments? Questions? Write me at
amm at en-genius dot net, or post your comments on our blog.
