Chalk up another landmark year for the region's oil - The National

Four years stand out as landmarks in Middle East oil: 1951; 1973; 1979; and 1991.

In those years, the old certainties burned in revolutions and wars, oil prices soared, and the world's energy affairs were set on an entirely different course. To those memorable dates, we can now add 2011.

The regimes that crumbled in the face of popular protests were those in which the failure of the rentier state model became impossible to ignore. The money from modest oil and gas production, in Egypt's case supplemented by foreign aid and Suez Canal tolls, was disbursed on low-paid but undemanding government jobs, and subsidised food and fuel.

* username: rupertbu