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Countries with low IQs tend to do poorly no matter what system they adopt. The UAE is a possible exception because it pivoted to tourism and westernism in every other respect but government and religion. The quality of people tells you the quality of country. Liberal democracy seems to work best when you have a small, highly productive, high trust population, which pretty much excludes much of the world and even much of the US.
Most of the UAE's revenue is oil and its derivatives (You are confusing Dubai and UAE). The Arab Gulf states are National avg IQ vs GDPPc PPP, outliers. Simar to ex-communist states who are outliers in the opposite direction. Credit where credit is due, it's not like natural resource wealth can't be squandered (or not realized at all), the ruling elite of the UAE is the real deal.
The native modest IQ stock of the UAE is a minority at ~20% of the population. The entire rest of the population is much higher functioning imported expats who do all the serious work (and construction workers).
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