[rdl]

Oman was actually pretty decent, from my experience between 2004-2010. They also mostly have young Omanis doing things like working at gas stations, rather than importing labor. They have recently started building more of a downstream gas economy, but have a demographic bulge in youth like Egypt does. It's also the prettiest natural environment of any of the GCC countries.

Bahrain and Kuwait mainly have issues due to large minority groups being repressed. Saudi is huge, and relatively diverse, with lots of political strife under the surface. UAE and Qatar are the expected super-rich with mostly imported slave labor. Jordan, Syria, Egypt don't have meaningful oil so no one cares. Iraq and Iran are largely having issues due to sectarianism, war, and isolation; Iran seems like it was the best country in the region before the Shah and revolution.

There are friendly/warm locals in all of these countries, but there's a clear social hierarchy, and only white Americans and Western Europeans, or other Gulf Arabs, will be treated as humans (some exception for Japanese in Kuwait), generally, and even then, the culture isn't as accessible to complete strangers as a lot of other cultures.