ABSTRACT
Many of the operators are women, and many did have the black abayas on, although not covering the face. Eighty percent of them are multilingual, all are Omanis, and their success is typical of the meticulous and realistic planning the Omanis have achieved on every economic level. The abaya, of course, is the black robe that covers the woman’s entire head, and one seldom sees it in Oman. In the end, the “Omani renaissance” was accomplished through not only wise leadership at the center but sufficient authority to enforce change, through a realistic philosophy of gradualism, and through the welding of the national identity that Al-Rowas spoke of, so that everyone accepted the rules of the game. No rational person “planning” for the Iraq war and its aftermath would have dreamed that Iraq, with its implacable hatreds and historical violence, would be the first country to develop.
