REFORMATION, NOT REVOLUTION:

The Monarch Who Declared His Own Revolution: King Abdullah, 85, is racing to reform Saudi Arabia. How much can he accomplish—and will it last? (Christopher Dickey, 3/21/09, NEWSWEEK)

For years the pace of reform in Saudi Arabia has reflected what seemed to be denial. Change has been almost imperceptibly slow, like a dune moving across the desert, even as the kingdom's festering problems nourished extremism. In the past few weeks, however, things have suddenly accelerated as the king has moved to show the ultraconservative Saudi religious establishment quite literally who's boss. He sacked the head of the feared religious police and the minister of justice, appointed Nora al-Fayez as deputy education minister, making her the highest-ranking female official in the country's history, and moved to equalize the education of women and men under the direction of a favored son-in-law who has been preparing for years to modernize the nation's school system. "Abdullah waited," says Robert Lacey, who wrote "The Kingdom," the classic 1981 study of Saudi Arabia, and is now working on a sequel. "He bided his time until it was appropriate for him to make the changes he wanted." Whatever the reason, the 85-year-old monarch has begun acting like a leader whose vision is becoming clear just as time is running short.

The question is how much he can accomplish before his death or dotage. [...]

Former CIA director Michael Hayden has credited the king and his men with providing some of the most productive and effective cooperation that the United States has with any country in the world. "Aggressive efforts by the Saudi security forces between 2003 and 2006 led to the death or capture of most Al Qaeda leaders and operatives within the kingdom," Hayden told a think tank late last year. "Financing networks were disrupted. The Saudi Interior Ministry undertook what is perhaps the world's most effective counterradicalization programs." Hayden added: "I am struck, maybe even surprised … by the degree of emotion in my Islamic counterpart's voice when he is talking about Al Qaeda and how un-Islamic Al Qaeda really is."

Abdullah essentially looks on his subjects with paternal indulgence, and his affection is reciprocated by much of the population. But such a personalized relationship between king and people provides an uncertain foundation for some of the reforms Abdullah now wants to push through. Speech is freer than ever before, but dissidents still risk being thrown in jail for speaking out publicly. Book fairs and poetry festivals have become gathering places for men and women, but they're also what one British expatriate in Riyadh calls "battlegrounds" where young hard-liners express outrage at the distribution of popular romances. The king has made history by meeting with the pope (after demanding and getting the acquiescence of Saudi Arabia's religious authorities), but Christian churches are still forbidden on Arabia's sacred soil.

Women are still forbidden to drive. They're required to keep their bodies covered (though they may expose their face if they like), and their choices in every aspect of life, personal and professional, are more limited than those of men. Saudi law treats women, at best, as second-class citizens. The fiery Princess Adelah, playing an ever more assertive role, is an inspiration to some. "She listens," says a young mother of two girls. "The king likes her a lot. She has become his public face."

And the old man himself? "I met him once," the mother says. "He's very quiet. I was with a delegation. We all shook hands with him." In puritanical Saudi Arabia, that's a serious gesture in itself. "He said we were all his daughters. And he actually listened and tried to solve each one's problem: 'Talk to this person or that person'." Still, change like that is hardly systemic. "Look, I would like to have a more effective role for women in society," says Adelah, who presides over numerous Saudi charities and whose husband, Faisal bin Abdullah, is the new minister of education. "We are finding it hard. We find lots of resistance. But we will not give up. These things aren't given to you. You need to pull them out of society."