With Iran's strategic alliance with Venezuela, once it controls Saudi oil fields, it hard to see how it would not become the undisputed ruler of the oil economy.
Stock in airlines were on a tear on Tuesday, recording stellar gains after oil costs dropped sharply, as rumors that Libyan ruler Muammar Gadhafi might be throwing in the towel.
Much of the impetus comes from choices made in the 1970s when the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, father of the current ruler, Sheikh Mohammed, decided that Dubai needed an economy that would outlast its oil supplies.