''Violence, repression and the perils of black gold''

From The National.ae

''A few decades ago, Luis Martinez writes in this timely and troubling study, much of the Middle East regarded black gold as "the weapon of mass destruction" that was capable of overcoming the interrelated bogeymen of underdevelopment, imperialism and Zionism. For the Algerian president Houari Boumediene it was "the people's blood", for Libya's Muammar Qaddafi the "fuel of the revolution" and for Iraq's Saddam Hussein the energy needed to become a regional power.

Just how catastrophic the political and economic leadership has been in some of the more notable oil autocracies and dictatorships of the world can be gauged by the fact that many in these countries now regard oil as a curse, not a blessing.''

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