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I'm thinking cross currents.

The Saud family since the 1700's have been wedded to the Wahabists. This worked just fine as long as Arabia was isolated from the outside world.

In the present circumstance, Wahabism has become a movement that they can only barely control; its like setting a wildfire, and racing ever faster to stay ahead of the fire you just set, lest it consume you too.

At the same time that they have turned their radicals loose on the world, and loose against themselves, there are generations of Saudis who have been educated abroad, and who do not want to live under the whip of a barely literate mullah.

The causeway to Bahrain is full of Saudis crossing over to take their wives dancing, or to dinner. Or going to have a drink at a restaurant.

There is tremendous pressure from their own people to ease up; not to throw out the whole culture, but to allow at least some freedom. Not necessarily to be California, as much of what they see in the US is disturbing to them, the crack ghettoes, the broken families, and such. But they want the freedom from rule by imbeciles. For women to work at normal jobs, for people to get normal academic education, for women to be able to drive a car.

To be able to state an opinion publicly.

Most of this is impossible, not so much because of the Saud family, as many of the Saud's are as modern as anyone, but because of the Sauds' fear of the Wahabist backlash, and the fear of what will happen if they lose control of the mullahs.

Right now, Saudis who want freedom have to vacation in Paris, or New York. When freedom is just across the line in Baghdad, when the Bahrainis no longer fear the Saudis, when the Kuwaitis look to Baghdad for whats new... When the US Army is no longer dependent on Saudi and Kuwaiti good will for its basing necessities, a lot is going to change.

The Sabah and Saud families will find the earth shifting under their feet. The mullahs will find resentment building against them that their sponsors in the royal family will not be able to suppress.

At least, this is how I see it from where I sit. If we do our job well.