Surging world oil prices are giving authoritarian governments in the Middle East extra options for dealing with discontent and demands for reform.
"The oil price rise has made all the dictators in the region stronger," said Mai Yamani, a Saudi researcher at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs. "Reforms have faltered."
Iran's resurgent hardliners are buoyed by the extra revenue and draw comfort from knowing that any US move to target their country in the "war on terror" could spark a new oil shock.
"The Iranians feel emboldened because of the Iraq mess and because oil prices would go through the roof if UN sanctions are used to embargo Iran's oil over the nuclear issue," said Ali Ansari, a British-based Iran analyst.
This year's roughly 40 per cent oil price rise has brought relief for unpopular governments from Tehran to Algiers.
"It's good news this year to be a rentier economy," Brad Bourland, chief economist at Samba Financial Group in Riyadh, told a recent Arab-US policymakers conference in Washington.
Arab economies will reap about $250 billion in oil revenues this year, possibly the highest ever, he forecast.
"As a result stock markets are rallying. Real estate markets are strong. Government finances are being strengthened. The trade balances will enjoy large surpluses. Interest rates are low. Inflation is low," Mr Bourland said.
Some governments have felt impelled to explain how they will use the oil windfall.
Libya has set aside a $20 billion fund for soft loans to Libyans to invest in small- and medium-sized private businesses in what government officials say is a drive to ensure that as many people as possible benefit from the surplus revenue.
Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah has announced plans to use the extra money to cut public debt, which has eased from a peak of 119 percent of GDP four years ago. He set aside 41 billion riyals ($11 billion) for a five-year programme of public works. Labour Minister Ghazi al-Gosaibi has pledged to revive efforts to employ more Saudis in an economy still dependent on a foreign army of six million workers.
Swelling coffers have helped Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, re-elected in April, to consolidate his power in a country emerging from a bloody war with Islamist militants.
Daniel Hanna, Middle East economist at Standard Chartered in Dubai, said strong tourist flows and remittances from the Gulf were boosting the economies of Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. "They are benefiting from the oil producers' boom," he said.
Nowhere has the bonanza been greater than in the world's biggest exporter, Saudi Arabia, whose ruling family has been grappling with rising unemployment and poverty, a year-long al Qaeda insurgency and tensions with its vital US ally since the September 11, 2001 attacks by mainly Saudi hijackers.
Economists estimate high prices and production this year will push Saudi oil revenues above $100 billion for the first time, and predict a record budget surplus of $30-$40 billion.
Already in 2003 diplomats warned that momentum for economic and political reform, driven partly by an oil price slump in the late 1990s, could wane as petrodollars flow back in.
Mr Yamani said pressure on world oil supplies and the debacle in Iraq, where Washington had promised a model democracy, had blunted US pressure on Saudi Arabia for thorough reform.
"The Saudis have become allies of the United States again. Now (Secretary of State) Colin Powell is hailing Saudi progress in the war on terror and praising Saudi reforms," she said.
"The Americans have realised how important Saudi oil is for the stability of the world oil market and they will do anything to prop up the royal family as long as the oil keeps flowing."
Yet pressure for reform may persist despite high oil prices. "Saudis understand now they are a gift which can be taken away at any time," said a Gulf economist who asked not to be named.
Economists point to the Saudi drive to join the World Trade Organisation and slow but steady progress on liberalising equities and capital markets as a sign of commitment to change.