No, but do you really think most of those countries will have shifted more than half of their economies to non-petrochemical industries by the time the spigot does get turned off?
UAE’s moving toward tourism (see Dubai).
I’ve seen sand.
Not like this stuff you haven’t. 
-XT
Get the idea they’re building the worlds largest gated community? Where the really, *really *rich foks can go to hide out from the rest of us?
Well sure…you won’t see the likes of ME in a place like that (they wouldn’t even let someone like me come in to clean the toilets, most likely). My point is, there is sand, and then there is SAND! And this sand is quite a bit different than your run of the mill scruffy ME sand dunes.
Still, it’s certainly being set up as a tourist destination…if one happens to be a tourist with a few billion in their bank account…
-XT
The oil they are talking about is very small compared to our use. It would not be on line for a long. long time. This move is political. The Repubs are screaming about opening up more drilling . It seems to work on their followers. So Obama defuses a big and meaningless argument and may get some points from the Repub followers. It was a smart political move, since it is all about nothing.