However, some practices, which would be outlawed as unethical in the United States, give the Middle East a strategic advantage that would be hard to pass-up. Employment laws are a good example. A company advertising in the United States for a young, attractive female receptionist of Lebanese origin (please attach passport photograph!) would be dragged into court for discrimination. In the Middle East, it is common practice.

More significantly, the practice of employing expatriate workers from the subcontinent at significantly lower salaries than Arab nationals or Western expatriates are paid, would be illegal in North America. Yet cheap skilled labour is one of the key selling points of the Middle East.