THE BIG ENCHILADA:

From Tunis to Cairo to Riyadh?: The Saudi royal family is corrupt, infirm, increasingly criticized in social media—and about to face a delicate, perhaps divisive succession process. (KAREN ELLIOTT HOUSE, 2/15/11, WSJ)

Thirty years of visiting Saudi Arabia, including intensive reporting over the past four years, convinces me that unless the regime rapidly and radically reforms itself—or is pushed to do so by the U.S.—it will remain vulnerable to upheaval. Despite the conventional wisdom that Saudi Arabia is unique, and that billions in oil revenue and an omnipresent intelligence system allow the regime to maintain power by buying loyalty or intimidating its passive populace, it can happen here.

The many risks to the al Saud family's rule can be summed up in one sentence: The gap between aged rulers and youthful subjects grows dramatically as the information gap between rulers and ruled shrinks. The average age of the kingdom's trio of ruling princes is 83, yet 60% of Saudis are under 18 years of age. Thanks to satellite television, the Internet and social media, the young now are well aware of government corruption—and that 40% of Saudis live in poverty and nearly 70% can't afford a home. These Saudis are living Third World lives, suffering from poor education and unable to find jobs in a private sector where 90% of all employees are imported non-Saudis. Through new media the young compare their circumstances unfavorably with those in nearby Gulf sheikhdoms and the West.

As Cairo was erupting in revolution in recent weeks, Saudis were treated to a glaring example of government incompetence as the kingdom's second largest city, Jeddah, flooded with sewage and rainwater for the second time in 14 months. This, despite promises from King Abdullah after the first flood to punish those responsible for leaving most of Jeddah without proper sewage or drainage. The combination of revolution in Cairo and government ineptitude in Jeddah produced widespread Saudi cynicism and anger on the Internet. [...]

The traditional sources of stability in Saudi Arabia have been the royal family and the Wahhabi religious establishment with which it is closely intertwined. These twin pillars were losing credibility and legitimacy even before events in Egypt.

Al Saud legitimacy rests largely on personifying, promoting and protecting Islam—indeed, the Saudi monarch refers to himself not as king but as "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques." Yet the royal family increasingly is seen by its subjects as profligate, corrupt and unable to deliver efficient government.

The religious establishment, even as it enforces its uniquely austere brand of Islam, is increasingly seen as prostituting itself by using religion to support whatever the ruling family wants. "We are hypocrites tricking each other, lying to each other as the government has taught us to do," one deeply devout imam tells me. "We are not Islamic."