Well yes but I'm skeptical that any of these had much to do with intelligence, maybe just a consequence of higher population.
Scandinavian countries are doing very well for themselves, the whole of Europe really, and that at least should be appreciated and acknowledged.
Never said it shouldn't, but that wasn't the comment.
Large population size was important, as it would lead to a desire to increase the availability of food. More highly concentrated populations also lead to more exchange of ideas. Another important factor was the incredibly large variety of food sources in the Near East, from different types of grains to different wild, but manageable animals and a good climate depending on the period. This actually started the cycle, by leading to large population sizes even before the actual "domestication" of plants and animals.
However, without a relatively high level of intelligence you don't have a lot of abstract thought, nor do you have a very high level of problem solving. That applies not only to the ancient Near East but to China and places like ancient Peru or Mexico as well.
The same thing would apply to England during the Industrial Revolution. You had large populations supported by a strong agricultural and trade based economy, many waterways, and on and on. They were also blessed by large deposits of iron and coal. They had the wit to take advantage of those things. However, the real flowering of the British Empire was because they conquered other countries, or at least dominated them, and got their resources for a pittance, so a lot of things come into play with how prosperous a country becomes. You have to have resources, but also the wit to use them.
Germany is another good example. The idea of "Lebensraum", or space for living, was part of the German national imperative since before the first World War and was even more important to the Nazis. That's why they planned to exterminate the Poles and Russians once they got through with the Jews and the Gypsies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum
Is it a coincidence that Germany became a power house economically under Hitler? He had some good ideas, often cribbed from Mussolini, but the big spike came through conquering so much of Europe, especially Eastern Europe. One of the prime motivations given for the take over was to get access to all that nice, flat farmland.
In an industrial and even post industrial age raw materials are extremely important. Not as kosher anymore to go take them by force from other areas, or to take their food either. So, in the last hundred two hundred or so years, having your own natural resources like coal, iron, natural gas, lots of hydroelectric power is very important, as well as lots of arable farm land, and having easy access to the main water trade routes, although the last is less important with the onset of cargo planes.
If you go to some source like the UN you'll see that a country like Italy, for example, doesn't have, and hasn't had since before the Roman Empire enough arable land to support its population, and has virtually no natural resources to speak of any longer. This means that everything it produces is produced with raw materials it has purchased abroad, and is processed using energy also purchased from abroad. Obviously, that's extremely expensive. The only way it has survived economically is by "added value" through creativity, design etc. producing products which bring a higher price. I don't know how much longer that can continue given the manufacturing might and outright copyright infringement of China and other East Asian countries.
I could also make an argument that Italy never fully recovered from the movement of trade away from the Near East and to the Americas and to the disastrous French invasion and other events of the late Renaissance, but that's for another thread.