  We argue that although at asymptotically high temperatures the QGP in bulk
behaves as a gas of weakly interacting quasiparticles (modulo long-range
magnetism), at temperatures up to few times the critical temperature $T_c$ it
displays different properties. If the running of the QCD coupling constant
continues in the Coulomb phase till the screening length scale, it reaches the
strong coupling treshold $\alpha_s(m_D)\sim 1$. As a result, the Coulomb phase
supports weakly bound Coulombic s-wave $\bar c c$, light quark and even $gg$
states.
  The existence of shallow bound states dramatically increases the
quasiparticle rescattering at low energies, reducing the viscosity and thereby
explaining why heavy ion collisions at RHIC exhibit robust collective
phenomena. In conformal gauge theories at finite temperature the Coulomb
binding persists further in the strong coupling regime, as found for ${\cal
N}=4$ SUSY YM in the Maldacena regime.
