When I wrote “....The portion of the Saudi population whose religious beliefs, social, and political sophistication is barley removed from the middle ages, is fertile ground for the Islamic Fundamentalist messages and recruiting. The fundamentalists are blanketing those populations with sermons, videos, and printed materials highlighting the corruption and sinfulness of the royal family and accusing them of being servants to the infidel Americans. This is a message which resonates with people whose perceptions of America are shaped by Al Jazera and internet pornography. This is the portion of the population which produced the 9/11 high-jackers.”.... I was referring to a very sizable portion, if not a majority in Saudi Arabia. Not just rural, but inclusive of disaffected urban dwellers in government housing only one or two generations removed from desert life...
BTW, if you get caught badmouthing the royal family in Saudi you'd best have relatives in one of the more powerful affiliated clans ~ otherwise you are 'toast'.
The way the state is organized is there are two main military forces ~ the Army, answerable to the king ~ and the National Guard, answerable to the various clans ~ which are sometimes identified as provinces.
They maintain the ideal balance ~ whether it's ideal or not, it's a well practiced traditional federal/federation system that's thousands of years old.
Here's where they really differ from us, although Bill Clinton might have tried to get it started ~ the founding family provides the dynasty which is a series of kings, usually brothers, or first cousins. Each king and his successors has as many wives as possible, and those wives come from the clans ~ whether affiliated or not. So a Saudi king might have a wife from Yemen for example.
They each try to have as many kids as possible.
Back when they had a million or so people the royals succeeded in breeding with each clan to produce a new class which is affiliated with the royal family and with the most important clan families.
This practice was continued down the line ~ I believe the last count was a good 50,000 'royals' in a country with 24 million.
Mullahs in Saudi are state employees. When one of them starts speaking out of line he gets reported, and he changes his sermons or he disappears.
There's always been a campaign against the royals and their corruption. That was going on even before they discovered oil there. At the same time the royals have always sought to ferret out discontent and silence it.
I think at the moment the royals are ahead ~ back on 9/11 they were behind and didn't know it.