VIDEO- Feeding the Arab Uprisings by Rami Zurayk http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/zurayk060511.html

Now, why is the Arab world so prone to bread riots as they are called? The Arab world is the most food import-dependent region in the world. Figures vary between "80% of the food we consume is imported" and "50% of the calories we consume is imported," but whichever figure one uses the situation is the following: we are the largest importer of food in the world.You may be familiar with the concept of the oil curse. Lured by the easy rents obtained from the oil economy, states tend to decrease their investments in the productive sectors, which eventually leads to lower rates of economic growth. For multiple reasons, the farm sector of the Arab world was the first to suffer from this curse.

This is itself of course a source of troubles. It attracts the voracity of rich, powerful industrialized nations whose appetite for fossil fuel is insatiable. In their bid to control resources, anything is permitted, especially the support of undemocratic authoritarian hereditary corruptocracies that are subservient to them.

Subservience comes with a whole economic package, usually a hideous chimera of neoliberalism and dictatorship. These regimes establish partnership with a small but powerful comprador business elite who uses political influence to carve highly profitable deals. We heard about them in Egypt, and we heard about them in Tunisia.Incidentally, Syria is the only country that used to have decent food sovereignty, food security, under a centrally planned economy. This is disappearing today through the combined effects of droughts and the regime's economic liberalization.

[I DO DISAGREE WHERE HE SAYS SAUDI ARABIA IS THE ONLY COUNTRY WHO CAN INCREASE PRODUCTION ACCORDING TO MARKET DEMANDS,HE LEFT OUT IRAN...BUT BECAUSE OF SANCTIONS I SEE WHY HE LEFT IT OUT,NO PROBLEM THERE,ANYWAY,HE SHOULD HAVE GONE DEEPER AND EXPOSED THE WESTERN CONTROL OVER ARAB ECONOMIES VIA THE GCC BLOCK,WICH IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF NEOLIBERALISM AND DISATER CAPITALISM,IN RGEION,IT IS THE  MECHANISM THRU WICH WESTERN CLIENT REGIEMS IN REGION,PROMOTE DISASTRUOUS FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS,IN RESPECT TO GULF REGION THAT IS..