I like your radical proposal very much. However, why House of Saud has to go? How about a gradual change to constitutional monarchy, with Royal family becoming exclusively ceremonial?
Last I remember, the principles of constitutional legality weren’t forced on the United States by an occupying country.
If we do the first four things, ralph, and if they effectively eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, then we will not need to give the Saudis any kind of ultimatum; we will have the luxury of minding our own business and allowing the Saudis to go to Hell, or to Heaven, in their own way.
I doubt the Saudi regime will be able to hang on much longer. Give them five years or so. But it isn’t so easy to predict what will follow them. My prediction is massive turmoil.
Why assume that any one group will succeed in taking over the entire country? It’s a big country and was assembled from pieces. The military in a normal country is usually able to make a coup d’état and take over a whole country at once, but the Saudi military is useless, as well as being divided. I can’t see a Saudi military coup. They don’t have it in them. What I foresee instead is a breakup, with various groups struggling for power.
The Shi‘ah in the Eastern Province have the incentive to fight for their interests, and we can expect them to be backed by Iran. Meanwhile al-Qa‘idah will be making their move. They have been turning off Saudis lately, who might have been sympathetic to them earlier, with terror attacks against Arabs inside Saudi Arabia. If they tried to seize power over all the country, I doubt they would be successful all over, though they could probably seize limited areas temporarily. It’s hard to predict how such a chaotic situation would ultimately wind up. This is based on a talk I had today with one of the top American experts on the Arab world.
So, what role would the foreigners play in all this? According to the Encarta, 23 percent of SA’s population is made up of foreign nationals. That’s a higher proportion than . . . well, any country I can think of. Which means their presence is politically significant in the event of any regime change – but significant how? If the monarchy falls, will the foreigners side with one insurgent faction or the other? Or will all the natives close ranks to drive the foreigners out of the country? Come to think of it, how foreign are these foreigners anyway? I think practically all of them are Muslims and most of them come from Arabic-speaking countries, but those are details the Encarta doesn’t cover.
Sorry, I didn’t read the article closely enough. Here’s what the Encarta says:
So, does this mean the foreigners will be easily assimilated into SA society? Since they’re mostly Arabs to begin with?
When I was in Jiddah and other parts of Saudi Arabia, I observed Urdu was used as a second language even more than English in some parts. Whole neighborhoods of Jiddah are Urdu-speaking (Indian and Pakistani gastarbeiter). Pidgin Urdu is used as a contact vernacular among the many different foreigners in Saudi Arabia as much as pidgin Arabic.
That’s a good question about the role of foreigners if it all fell apart. Saudi society is still heavily tribal. The tribalism is less pronounced in Hijaz than in the other regions: in Najd and ‘Asir, the native Saudi population is still totally tribal. It was tribes of Najd who originally made the Saudi state, and the tribes of ‘Asir are related to the tribes of Yemen. Meanwhile, tribalism in Hijaz is diluted to some extent because so many immigrants have moved there over the course of many cneturies. The Eastern Province where all the oil is has the Shi‘ites and lots of gastarbeiter.
The Arabs from other countries may play a limited role in future political developments, but very limited by lack of tribal affiliation, unless some from Kuwait are tribally related to some Saudi tribes. The Indians and Pakistanis who make up perhaps the biggest group of gastarbeiter will have nothing to contribute either way. Even if some are kicked out as a result of turmoil, probably most of them would be kept on anyway to perform the skilled and unskilled labor needed to keep the economy going.
To predict what will happen to Saudi Arabia, remember the country has been cobbled together from 4 different regions, each with its own history and interests: Najd, Hijaz, the Eastern Province, and ‘Asir. The fall of the regime is likely to fall out different ways in each of these places. It could wind up as four separate countries in the absence of some uniting factor, because the only thing that makes them one country now is the Al Sa‘ud family that conquered them all between 1902 and 1934.
This is a fascinating thread, thank you to all the participants. I’m looking for opinions on what this might do to the country, positive and negative:
Any insight to how this came about, and why now? It’s obviously a good thing for the women, but will it inflame the extremists even more? What impact will this have? Could this be permanent or just a temporary sop?
If I were a woman in Saudi Arabia, I’m not sure I would celebrate just yet.
Welcome to the “20th” Century SA. I think.
I get the distinct impression this is being done for women, not by them.
Arabs fight Arabs all the time, so Civil war between different tribes would be extremely likely result of a revolution in SA, imo.
Anybody has any good info about SA Council of Ministers?
I think that this will increase the amount of unrest. When there was a Economic Forum in Jeddah, there were Saudi Women "Covered’ but unveiled on the stage with men. One of the top Imans said that he women were evil for appearing with men. While Saudi Women in Jeddah are a strong economic force, they are not allowed to participate without a male to do be the front man as it were.
I don’t have a cite, it happened when I lived there and it was in the Arab News late last year.