The only recently appointed Swedish Minister for European Union affairs made her first notable statement regarding the affairs in the Saudi kingdom being "on the right way", quietly – if not so subtly – vindicating the possibility of trade with the Wahhabi state that has faced so much scathing, save for that of its most cherished resource.
I bend in prostration, momentarily, to have well-founded causes for such optimism. There are, however, reasons to think twice and thrice regarding the future of Saudi Arabia. While the perverted, absolutist state of affairs within the kingdom, as well as its alliance with Wahhabi clerics has maintained a varnish of godly autocracy, the main – that is, the loudest – opposition remains within the Islamist camp, ranging from Salafi Jihadi Caliphate-wishers of a Wahhabi streak. Should the proclaimed Caliphate on its northern frontier elect to push south for the grand prize, there are many among the Wahhabi ranks who would prefer to turn their coats to join the radical, violent zeal of the alleged Islamic State with the legitimacy embedded within the Saudi royal title – once Saladin's – Hadim al-Haramayn as-Sarifayn, Custodian of the Two Mosques – the brand new pseudo-Caliphate of Raqqah and the geriatric quasi-Caliphate of Riyadh joined in a beacon which would bolster the legitimacy of the radical Salafi Jihadism on the rise and rise for decades.
The ever-changing face of its most sacred possession. While the surroundings of the Ka'aba have moved past recognition since al'Otaibi's and the Ikhwan's seizure, opposition has remained against the Saudi equilibrium and its less orthodox, more innovative tenets.
As of today, such fears-hopes seem not much more likely as the showdown at Dabiq heralded in its eponymous magazine. The more important question is; if the third Saudi state is not to be swallowed up by the particularly untasty, particularly zealous and particularly uncompromising child it has spawned; what is to be of it? As in Syria, the eventual solution may seem elusive, but is unlikely to see transformation into a confederal, liberal democratic model. Salafi factions still, and generously fed by the Saudi oil machinery at the moment of its late transition into non-fossil incomes and the grand transition to its third generation, smooth and peaceful as it may play, with princelings jostling for power within the Sudairi and her grandsons as well. A monarchy, as strong as the health of its sole embodiment and his (in the mindset of Wahhab and Saud, always his) issue, cannot survive the division arising from contest to this embodiment, and the uneasily kept contract between sons cannot reasonably sustain the move to grandsons in a world already undergoing substantial changes, with a far more dynamic and recovering Iran on the rise, in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, catalysing on well-founded Shi'a grievances within the kingdom. Add to that the Salmanite reforms, some would say a Fujimorist autogolpe with the added recipe of streamlining hereditary rule among the Sudairi brothers, and a final ingredient well past ripe for change of a most unsavoury, malevolent, audacious character.
The Saudi equilibrium; a strong, paternalistic, fearful authority over a nation of children, particularly its girls, embodied in its promise of well-fed, well-supplied (native) subjects, where women cannot drive but shop for Western attire and take an increasing role within education and even the sporadic events referred to as elections, where Sunni religious authority is asserted but without pretense to take the al-Aqsa mosque and replace Custodianship with Caliphate, where a trinity of alcohol, drugs and zina is knowingly and hypocritically available for Westerners and princes alike, has managed only to alienate every ideological force within its borders, not least the Salafi forces the Saudi family has spent billions strengthening, hoping to make from its throne a desert-bound octopus controlling the unruly forces of Sunni radicalism and militancy. With its social contract hollowed out by decreasing oil revenue and dependency – not least among its main customer, which has turned increasingly stubborn regarding the fruits of Saudi oil money – one undeniable question arises with regards to its future. The equilibrium cannot be sustained, and where no clear option is to emerge, chaos is all but certain. With no democratic, parliamentary frameworks or political parties successfully established, even for the self-glorification of the Sauds, a peaceful transition to a republican constitution is indeed looking grim.
