It's like chess, checkers, risk, go, Starcraft, etc.
You can put a crappy player in a great position on the board, giving them great "resources". But a significantly better player will often still be able to win.
Compare North Korea to South Korea. Same culture, same geography, same genetic pool -- but as a society the North Koreans went horribly horribly wrong. North Koreans went with a political and economic philosophy (communism) that was and is far inferior to capitalism.
That's my fundamental disagreement with this article. Human intellect driven by forces in the culture and society have a great more to do with a country's "importance" on the geopolitical stage than resources.
Oil plus security might. But Middle Eastern countries have no security.