As a career CT officer, I agree completely! The Saudis are and always have been the most militant and missionary of all Muslim countries. Not that members of the House of Saud are devout Muslims; they aren’t and the “faithful” know it. They are pretenders and live opulent lifestyles behind their walls and while they travel abroad. For years they have exported Wahhabism and its adherents to other countries to diminish the threat to the Saudi Royal Family and its dictatorial rule.
If the House of Saud were to fall, Saudi Arabia would go the way of Venezuela and militant Islam would likely dry up in the West due to lack of funding from the Royal Family.
I disagree. The House of Saud (which is big, over a 15,000 members, of which 2000 have actual power and influence) sits atop a tiger composed of the Saudi population. Members range from poltically liberal to hedonists, to the pious, to extremists who support Al Qaeda and ISIL.
If they were to fall, the most likely and dangerous outcome would be a Al Qaeda or ISIL regime in its place. Unlike Venezula, these folks are competent, if evil, people. Look at a map, if the KSA becomes an active Islamic revolutionary state, they would quickly gobble up the Gulf states and Jordan would not last much longer. They could effectively shut down the Oil trade, close the Red Sea and force trade to go around Africa, and likely start a major war that makes the Iraq war and Syrian Civil War look like a tiff between toddlers.
Much of what the family does is to prevent this by nplacating, buying off, balancing, and coercing the varied elements of the population. Wahabbism is prevalant, and they take their role as “Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques” incredibility seriously. This constrains them politically, because there are red lines they dare not cross. They clearly remember the fall of the Shah due to his liberalization. If they lose power, they would lose their heads.