The changes we observe in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the continuous statements about future economic, social, and political transformations issued from the decision-making center and the royal palace prompt the observer of Saudi affairs to ask the pertinent question: Where is Saudi Arabia headed?
To answer this question preliminarily without delving into a deep analysis of events, we must trace the path of Saudi openness and read its backgrounds to understand the possibilities of its development and the direction of this development in the future.
The royal decision to allow Saudi women to drive had a very high and broad resonance disproportionate to the size of the event. This decision came after Saudi Arabia announced its future project known as Saudi Vision 2030. Although this decision is an internal Saudi matter and its initial repercussions will be felt only by Saudis, global and Arab media covered and analyzed the news extensively, spotlighting it heavily and occupying social media for weeks and still continuing…
Yes, allowing women to drive is not personally considered an extraordinary social development, despite its importance as a fundamental human right and my full understanding and support for Saudi women. It must be reminded that today we live in the 21st century, and the world is busy discovering driverless cars… So why all this noise?
The main reason is that this decision has very important indicators beyond the basic right of Saudi women, indicators whose extent we have begun to discover in recent days and which will shape the future of Saudi Arabia and its ruling system.
First, the decision indicates that the royal palace and decision-making center are no longer entirely in the hands of the Wahhabi sheikhs, and there are signs of a rift between the Wahhabis and the Al Saud, and a crack has occurred between the two allies who have ruled the country since its founding. This does not mean a complete break between the Wahhabis and Al Saud! What happened is the beginning of a strategic direction regarding Saudi state relations with religion and within the royal palace, which must be followed carefully and precisely… In my reading, Saudi Arabia is one of the most bureaucratic countries in the world and one of the furthest from human rights and democracy.
Second, the socio-political pressure from the Saudi people on the royal palace and Wahhabi jurisprudence can no longer be ignored, and it is no longer possible to pacify the people with money to silence blatant social injustice as was the case in the past thirty years. In this context, we have not yet witnessed a strategic transformation but rather momentary tactics aimed at discovering the extent of profit and loss resulting from this or that tactic. This primarily relates to the kingdom’s definition of itself as Saudi Arabia, land and people, resources and air belonging to the royal family, and changing the relationship between ruler and ruled is not easy in such a reality.
Third, the changes in the region have left their marks on Saudi society. Terrorists of Saudi origin now also threaten peace in the kingdom after returning from battlefields in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These individuals were ideologically raised by Wahhabi-Salafi imams who planted the seeds of Islamist terrorism worldwide… The royal family realizes that Wahhabi-Salafi jurisprudence has fertile ground in Saudi society, which has been conditioned to this type of thinking over the past decades. They also understand that the greatest danger from this terrorist Takfiri monster, nourished by Wahhabi Takfiri thought, will strike them first. Saudi allies in the West also realized that talking about fighting terrorism while turning a blind eye to Wahhabism and its Takfiri projects is futile and merely a media dispute. Therefore, pressure increased on the royal family to correct its relationship with religious figures and their schools.
Fourth, this decision, the social and political transformation, was not purely Saudi but imposed on the royal family by their Western allies, primarily the United States, as confirmed by Trump during his historic visit to Saudi Arabia… Everyone understands that the failure of the war on Syria and the resilience of the Syrian Arab Army against the aggression led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar with American blessing has placed us before a renewed Middle East. A Middle East with Iran as a regional power backed by a strong, capable alliance with high popular support… Everyone also understands that to confront this alliance supported by China and Russia and to open the possibility of competing with it geopolitically and in other fields, Saudi Arabia must renew itself internally, politically and socially, to play a role in the renewed Middle East… This is a strategic shift in the royal family’s direction supported by its Western allies, and we will later outline the possibilities of this transformation and its possible outcomes.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia lived a lifestyle in the past thirty years as if the oil well would never run dry… only to discover that this illusion it convinced itself of has passed and that the state treasury has revealed a financial deficit of tens of billions annually for years… The Saudi financial crisis worsened in the past five years after the royal family was dragged into serving the Western project to contain Iran and Russia and attempt to economically subdue them by competing with oil prices on the global market. Saudi Arabia discovered after years that Iran and Russia emerged unscathed from this competition while the Saudi financial deficit doubled and the internal crisis worsened during the same period.
Saudi Arabia’s slide into the Zionist-American project to destroy and divide Syria and overthrow regimes in the name of the Arab Spring, culminating in its destructive war on Yemen and the cowboy mindset hysteria of Saudi armament, exacerbated the royal family’s political and material crisis and embarrassed it socially. The internal social and political calm bought by the royal family with money over decades vanished, and popular discontent and restlessness among segments of the people toward the ruling system and the absence of citizenship increased. In addition to all this, the royal family’s involvement in supporting Islamist terrorism increased pressure from its Western allies, especially Europe, after this terrorism’s flames reached them and struck their homes, prompting a change in their political course and relationship with the religious institution sponsoring this terrorism.
In addition to all this, Saudi Arabia lives a social contradiction and conflict that threaten daily explosion… The vast majority of the Saudi people (about 70%) are youth under the age of thirty-five… Youth who travel outside the kingdom to Europe and see with their own eyes that money alone does not make people happy but prosperity, social freedom, citizenship, and political partnership through civil society and its institutions… This youth has quick access to the internet with its plurality, possibilities, and freedoms, and undoubtedly compares their situation with others and discovers they live on an island flying the flag of reactionary and medieval relations socially and in the relationship between the ruling owner and the ruled owned… This situation accumulates great social and moral tension, sometimes exploding secretly and so far successfully concealed… The question is not if the bigger explosion will happen but when and with what intensity? Without radical change in citizenship, political and economic partnership, and possibilities of openness and development, a popular social explosion will inevitably come…
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is important not only for the region but also for global peace as a whole:
First, Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical location makes it the focus of interest for all regional and global countries, and its role in the Gulf Cooperation Council and its connections increase this importance.
Second, Saudi Arabia’s religious status for the Islamic world and its Sunni role in the region alongside Turkey and Egypt raise interest in it and its future.
Third, Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves and guarantees linking oil prices to the US dollar make it a backbone of the global economy… This explains the great European and American interest in Saudi affairs and the kingdom’s future as it guarantees the global economy’s stability if the kingdom decides to change oil pricing from the dollar to another currency… American economic experts have drawn scenarios ending the dollar’s link to the international oil market and its impact on the global economy, especially the American economy… The result would be a global catastrophe setting the world back centuries.
This explains the intimate but unequal relationship between the democratic West, which champions human rights and individual freedoms, and the feudal bureaucratic Saudi regime, with silence all this time on the internal and external policies of the royal family and its Wahhabi religious ally… This complex dialectic leads me to conclude that the future of Saudi Arabia, its people, system, and economy cannot be left by the West, led by the United States, to the Saudis alone! This is what we observe from the excessive interest of Western strategic study centers for two centuries, especially after Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait and the Kuwait liberation war, in Saudi Arabia’s future and its role in the region.
The possible scenarios, in my estimation, are three:
First, ending the role of Al Saud and bringing another tribe to take over the reins of power in the kingdom. This possibility is very slim due to the weakness of alternatives and the unpredictability of the consequences of such a comprehensive coup to change the ruling system and its impact on calm and stability in the Arabian Gulf.
Second, a balanced pressure attempt on King Salman bin Abdulaziz to start internal social and political openness to calm the internal situation in the kingdom and avoid popular explosion. This possibility was tested since the king took power in 2015 but proved unsuccessful due to his personal and health weaknesses and inability to hold the reins of power in the royal family’s first rank. This weakness appeared in his decision to remove Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef from all his positions and appoint his son Mohammed bin Salman as defense minister and crown prince instead. This step divided the royal family into two factions, and the 82-year-old king could no longer reunite the first rank. This decision, along with other strategic decisions such as supporting terrorism, war on Syria and Yemen, and the severance with Qatar, increased Western concern and internal cracks in the kingdom.
The third and final possibility, which began to be implemented since June 2017, is the arrival of a young Saudi ruler fully linked to the American project for the region and possessing the strength to hold the reins of power for a long transitional phase… The appointment of Mohammed bin Salman, who was tutored by American and British intelligence, as crown prince instead of the charismatic former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction with the kingdom’s situation and its endless ties to the American project and prioritizing American desires over the region’s and kingdom’s interests, was done with American backing and support.
Preparation for the third possibility began some time ago by drawing a roadmap to transfer Saudi Arabia from its current dangerous situation to a state promising stronger stability and a different future but without letting the Saudi card leave American hands… The first step was the announcement on April 25, 2016, of the Saudi roadmap called Saudi Vision 2030.
The path of Vision 2030 is crystallizing day by day in Saudi Arabia, especially as it focuses on transforming the kingdom from an economy mostly dependent on oil revenues to diversifying resources and reducing this dependence, in addition to alleviating the burdens on the state resulting from the rentier economy and focusing on expanding and supporting the private sector to create job opportunities for Saudi youth.
In this context, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman unveiled on Tuesday, October 24, the “NEOM” project, a giant city valued at $500 billion to be built on an area of 26,500 square kilometers extending into Jordanian and Egyptian territories. Notably, the city will not follow the rules and regulations applied in the rest of Saudi Arabia, which enforces Sharia law.
Alongside this giant economic program, there are other programs to reduce the role of religious figures in public life and in education. The first steps included stripping the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice of the authority to detain or interrogate people, as well as announcing the establishment of a committee to monitor Hadiths to regulate their use. This alone diminishes the role of religious figures and cuts their long arm of interference in daily life. A General Authority for Entertainment was also created to develop this field by opening entertainment centers, cinemas, theaters, etc., without touching core religious beliefs…
This bundle of renewals and plans is undoubtedly heading in the right direction… but it must be noted that the Saudi tribal society and the caravans of religious men and their institutions will not stand idly by before this change, which means the beginning of the end of their golden era, and they will do everything possible to sabotage these steps. It is difficult now to predict the scenario that will occur later!
The most important question in this regard is whether these plans and programs will save Saudi Arabia from the potential explosion and from its obscure future as an independent state with defined borders and Al Saud as a ruling system?
My answer is short and clear: these changes come about a quarter of a century late… The complex Saudi crisis between political, tribal, economic, religious, and hegemonic factors is no longer easily overcome through economic and social patch programs that do not truly change the features of the political and social system in a way that can later be called a social or political revolution!
These steps alone, without noticeable change in the Saudi political system, will fade away and at best postpone the date of the popular tension explosion but will not be able to extinguish its fuse completely.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with its political and social structure, is a feudal entity as known from European medieval history… A large family of a few thousand owns the country, its natural resources, and the people living in it… In this feudal relationship, change must begin… I do not mean by this to abolish the monarchy with a stroke of a pen! That is political romanticism… What I mean is a phased program to transform the feudal political system into a liberal monarchy as exists in Jordan, followed by further development to reach a situation like the monarchy in Morocco, and perhaps one day we will see the Saudi monarchy, after a qualitative societal and political transformation, become a monarchy like those in European countries in the 21st century.
