The annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank offer a relatively informal atmosphere for finance ministers, central bank governors and private sector executives to discuss the previous year and set a direction for the next. In Istanbul last month, the meetings reviewed a year of economic turmoil and vast change in government policies. Representatives from the Middle East recalled that the 2008 annual meetings in Washington occurred in a week when crude oil prices dropped 17 percent, the United Arab Emirates federal government guaranteed bank deposits and intra-bank lending and the Saudi stock exchange dropped to their lowest level in four years. This year’s affair was far calmer. The broad consensus in Istanbul was that the worst was over and that the Middle East had survived the global crisis better than most of the world. Lebanon and Saudi Arabia were praised by many, including Mohsin Khan,
