[mseebach]

Regrettably, there's more to great universities than throwing money at it. It's important to remember that the country has no educational history. 50 years ago the few inhabitants there were barely literate, and few of those who could read had ever read anything but the Quran.

That said, Abu Dhabi is actually trying to do just that. They're buying off entire departments of western universities, offering generous research grants if the department is relocated to Abu Dhabi. The idea is to bootstrap a tradition of higher education.