Why was Arab Socialism so much more successful at economic improvement that applications of socialism in Eastern...

Why was Arab Socialism so much more successful at economic improvement that applications of socialism in Eastern European and Latino countries?

Is it because they have a large mineral resource base and that they also allowed for a moderate degree of small private businesses to operate?

I'll use two main examples: Egypt and Iraq

Before Nasser, Egypt was a very poor rural country without a middle class. Pretty much masses of peasantry ruled by a very wealthy elite. Nasser's programs included building the Aswan dam and providing electricity to much of Egypt. He built an Egyptian middle class and allowed millions of Egyptians to now have access to education and college, and massively increased employment levels. Unlike in Cuba, socialist Egypt under Nasser witnessed no huge flight of capital or millions leaving the country.

In Iraq, in 1975, Saddam completely nationalised the previously British owned oil industry and with the revenue built a first world class national healthcare system where every citizen had free healthcare. Not to mention he succeeded in building huge roads and highways and providing free education, and greatly increased the quality of life for the average citizen, largely through the oil money, even though the British sanctioned the country after the 1975 nationalisation.

Why were Arab implementations of socialism so much more successful at improving economic development and quality of life than European and Latino socialist countries?

But Nasser and Saddam wrecked their respective economies, which before them was already fast growing and industrializing.

That's actually not true

>Iraq: couldn't win a war against Iran, a country under sanctions that cleared minefields via teenagers charging into them (this is unsurprising since the Baath party was founded by the Nazis and we all know how good the Nazis are at war)

>Egypt: continually increasing poverty that eventually resulted in a popular overthrow of the government

>Syria: continually increasing poverty combined with climate change (massive crop failures resulted in farmers fleeing to urban areas) and harsh crackdowns resulted in a popular uprising against the government (again, government is run by Baathists, but this time they're being aided by incompetent Russian troops who mainly just bomb residential areas and hospitals/get shot down by Turkey)

Egypt went hardcore capitalist and privatisation since the late 70s you fucking dumb faggot, that's what caused the revolution, Egypt hasn't been Arab Socialist for decades.

Ba'ath party was founded by a French educated ex-communist and was modelled after French nationalist values like equality, liberty, fraternity

Also Iraq pretty much had destroyed Iran thoroughly by 1988 forcing Iran to accept ceasefire conditions it had refused since the beginning, after capturing pretty much all of iran's armoured force and wiping out the Iranian forces in Fao in the tawakalna campaign. Khomeini even said the ceasefire was like poison for him and he died pretty soon afterwards by how much of a shock the defeat was to him.

Oil

Having natural resources do all the work for you

Eastern Europe had been wrecked by WW2 and was brutally oprressed by the sovjets, while Latin America was a quagmire of Sovjet and US-funded guerilla wars, hostile takeovers, coups and assassinations.

Oil kept the peace as the West was not interested in too much mayhem in the Middle-East.
Egypt is a bit different in that it has the Suez canal, which is a very very strategic trading hub for oil tankers (and a good source of revenue for the Egyptian state)

Venezuela had oil and they still went to shit after nationalisation

Iraq's oil nationalisation in 1975 resulted in British sanctions

Oil is an abundant resource that can bring in capital to fund socialist programs like free education, healthcare, and public works. These semi-successful socialist examples rely on an abundance of capital (or high-demand natural resources to be sold) in order to implement them. Lots of Eastern European or Latin American examples of socialism did not have that initial funding, and had no way to perpetuate those social programs, so they failed quicker.

See:

The protests in Egypt and Syria were fuelled by income inequality from the liberalisation of the economy you utter retard.