ABU DHABI, Nov 15: Former US president Bill Clinton criticized Gulf Arab countries on Tuesday for not spreading their huge oil wealth around the Middle East to push education, fight poverty and find alternative energy sources.

Addressing business leaders in the United Arab Emirates, Mr Clinton said Gulf governments should resist the urge to spend mainly on themselves in a new period of high oil prices, which analysts say is set to continue for the foreseeable future.

“This is a magic moment for this part of the world. I think you should think about ... what you should do today so that (your grandchildren) will think 50 years from now that it was a magic moment because of the gifts you left behind,” he said.

“Many people will look back and say you had all these riches and you built some beautiful buildings, you had a very good time — but you also thought about me and how the world would work.”

Analysts estimate that Gulf Arabs will plough $360 billion into foreign assets in 2005-2006.

“If I were a benevolent dictator of all the Middle East, I’d turn it not into the oil centre of the world but the energy centre,” Mr Clinton said, listing solar and wind energy.

“I’d take some of the cash reserves and invest money in all the poor countries around here ... I would educate them and manufacture massive amounts of alternative energy technologies.”

Bill Clinton said such a regional redistribution of wealth would help reduce extremism, which would also require an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. —Reuters