Omar Bin Sulaiman, director-general of the Dubai International Financial Centre, has a dream: that economic growth and wealth creation will bring peace to the Middle East. "It's easy to persuade a desperate person to get into trouble but harder for someone with wealth to give that away," he said.

Given the turmoil in Iraq, realisation of that dream may be some way away. It is also too early to judge the success or otherwise of the DIFC, which opened a year ago to address what was described as a need in the international financial services industry for a link between east and west.