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While Qaboos built an incomparably more generous social safety net than his father, he brooked no dissent. And Oman will have to deal with the legacy of corrupt and authoritarian governance that he leaves behind.
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Thread. A bunch of policy analysts will eulogize Sultan Qaboos as a great peacemaker - and to his credit, he did resolutely steer clear of the proxy wars tearing the region apart. He was also very popular, and my thoughts are with the Omani people. But more needs to be said.
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Those of us who were in Oman in 2011 remember the repression. All independent press shuttered, criticism banned, and dissidents imprisoned, intimidated, and silenced. Two protesters were killed by security forces, and many more were shot.
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We should also remember that the reforms he made on his accession in 1970 resulted, in no small part, from pressure exerted by a revolutionary movement in the southern province of Dhofar, which was brutally crushed with support from the Shah and the British.
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The fear and uncertainty gripping Oman this evening - troops in the streets, an opaque and byzantine succession process, a country in shock - are a direct result of an unwillingness to share power.
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I'm hesitant to be critical at a moment like this, and again, I want to send my condolences to my Omani friends. For a man with absolute power, he wielded it with a lighter touch than most.
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But well-informed critics in Oman won't be able to publish commentary like this - and commentators sitting in comfort and safety abroad should remember it.
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