‘Business as Usual’ (1980–2001)

• Published in: Deception in High Places p. 129
• Main Author: Gilby, Nicholas
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Pluto Press 20.11.2015
• Subjects: Accountancy; Accounting records; Aerospace engineering; Aircraft; Applied sciences; Arms trade; Aviation; Axiology; Behavioral sciences; Bookkeeping; Business; Business structures; Civil law; Contract law; Contracts; Corporate affiliates; Descriptive ethics; Engineering; Ethics; Government; Government corruption; Human societies; International relations; Invoices; Law; Legal agreements; Memoranda of understanding; Military vehicles; Moral corruption; Philosophy; Political corruption; Political science; Princes; Princesses; Royalty; Social classes; Social stratification; Social structures; Sociology; Special purpose vehicles; Subsidiary companies; Transportation; Upper class; Vehicles
• ISBN: 9780745334264; 0745334261
• DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt183h10r.13

At the start of the 1980s, corruption was, of course, still a significant factor in international trade and the internal politics of many countries. British diplomats fretted over the security of the ‘traditional regimes of Arabia’, in the light of the Islamic revolution in Iran, and the occupation of the Grand Mosque at Mecca, Saudi Arabia, by Islamic fundamentalists, in 1979. They thought¹ a major weakness of these regimes was ‘corruption, whose full extent is scarcely guessed at by their subjects, and which is the skeleton in the cupboard of all the ruling families’. In Oman, the current Sultan, Qaboos,