WPpg1: At Crossroads, Saudi King Tests Winds of Reform (w/ $70-barrel oil)

[DeepModem Mom]

At a Crossroads, Saudi King Tests the Winds of Reform
By Anthony Shadid and Steve Coll
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 18, 2005; A01


....The country Abdullah inherits stands warily at a crossroads, uncertain whether real change is in the offing. From the conservative northern tribal regions to the liberal business capital of Jiddah on the Red Sea, ordinary Saudis are speaking tentatively about topics previously taboo, testing the culture of silence and intimidation that smothers so much political discourse here....

***

Abdullah has tried to signal a new openness by launching public campaigns that acknowledge some of the kingdom's problems, such as its increasingly visible pockets of urban and rural poverty, its abysmal highway accident rate, and its troubling incidence of drug addiction among young urban men. Yet public discussion about such issues, while new, is often cast in terms of conformity, with newspaper commentators and university professors repeating the official concerns authorized by the king.

In the meantime, Saudi Arabia's sense of urgency about change is being undermined by skyrocketing oil prices. A middle-class culture of consumption and financial speculation has distracted many Saudis. New Hummers and Porsches prowl the streets of major cities; subsidized gas sells for less than a dollar a gallon; the stock market is soaring; and the kingdom still has no income tax.

With oil prices nearing $70 a barrel, many Saudis say they feel like they are at the cusp of a once-in-a-lifetime boom, and trying to profit as best they can. Saudi oil exports have risen from $34 billion in 1998 to more than $150 billion this year.

One in three Saudis is estimated to own stock, and trading has become such a pastime that some government ministries have had to order their employees not to leave work for banks, where shares can be bought. A few Riyadh residents suggested that people were less interested in Abdullah's ascension than about the rise in the Saudi Tadawul All-Shares Index....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/17/AR2005081701844_pf.html

[Turbineguy]

1. Jeddah is liberal?

Brrr....... Ted Bundy was a humanitarian.

[Massacure]

3. Conservative and Liberal are relative terms.

For example most southern Democrats are probably more conservative than northern Republicans.

[wallwriter]

2. Major political/ humanitarian/ military disaster impending.

The current oil fed market bubble will not last. While it does, it will polarize the country between increasing Islamic extremism and increasing prosperity-based Western decadence. This should be enough to start a civil war.

After the bubble bursts, the combination of poverty and extremist recrimination will lead to a quick fundamentalist takeover.

Lose-lose.

Actually, the only positive note is that after the oil is gone, the fundamentalists won't have any real power, unless, of course, they get their hands on a few nukes.

Which shouldn't be hard.