I studied Saudi Arabia extensively while getting my MBA. My goal was to become an expert for the company I worked for, which had operations there. I discovered that the royal family, now counted in the thousands, is hanging on to power by a thread. They use a secret police that would have made Heinrich Himmler green with envy. They control most of the levers of power. At the same time they finance virtually all of the religious schools which turn out students who, when the look around them, live in nothing like the world they are taught is the one and only world to live in. In my opinion, the entire society is unstable and ripe for self destruction.
While planning my escape from the country should things go badly, I decided that maybe working there was not such a good idea. I’d be amazed if the current Saudi government is still here twenty to fifty years from now. The big problem with the government is it can not change. If it appears to adopt newer modes or western notions it will be torn apart by its self-manufactured true believers. Change is not allowed in Islam.
I worked there in the 80s. I was all over the country. Made several trips there in the 90s. You and I can explain to folks all day but till you spend a bit of time there and get the “feel” it means nada. From Jeddah to Dammam the country reeks an atmosphere that can only be explained as spooky. The religious police, the Wahabis and the Shi’ites...then there are the southern tribes. Rumors of the fall of the House of Saud have been going on for decades but this time they may be true.
Good summary. They also had one of the fastest population growth rates in the world...meaning a lot more mouths to feed and people to muzzle.
But overall, the Royal Family does hang on by a thread. They were nearly toppled in 1979 (I think) in the Mecca attack - very nearly toppled, and it will take only slightly more organization than the Cologne New Year’s Eve mob to put their entire family in front of firing squads.
I think they also do quite a bribing of Western politicians and media people. How else to explain the West accepting the flood of Muslim immigrants, and the social chaos they cause.
If the Powers-that-Be stop having a financial incentive to put up with the Muslim invasion, then the West may start deporting them back to the Muslim world, where they will intensify the social chaos.
It's truly despicable that the US and our allies have sided with this evil regime.
Would you agree that the Saudi Royal family knows it has an expiration date on the Arabian Peninsula and is the reason they are so heavily invested in global real estate, particularly in Switzerland and other perceived safe-havens?
I would be interested in your opinion regarding the relationship between the Saudi ruling and religious classes.
Question: Do the rulers of Saudi Arabia defer to the religious leaders of Saudi Arabia as a political necessity or out of devotion to Islam?
If the answer is both, which force is the stronger?
Now that we have assured the Iranians of a path to nuclear weapons, how does that affect the ambitions of the Saudis?
Thanks again, Jimmy Carter. The Shah was a progressive, women had rights and status in Iran when he ruled. Saddam would *never* have invaded Kuwait if the Shah was in power.
Thank you, Carter.
Thank you, Carter,
Thank you, Carter.