Something is moving inside KSA. It is well known that king Abdullah is leading a moderate reform movement inside his kingdom. It is not easy for him, and nobody is absolutely sure of its success. I pray that Benedictus stays firm in his positions. This might help the king curb the fundamentalist pro-Qaeda oppositon to the reforms.
As a post-scriptum, we watched an increase (huge) of Saudi acquisition of real-estate in Lebanon in the recent years. This might be a move by the royal moderate reformists to assure a safe retreat in case..........
Of course, you can find absolute radical reformists refusing the monarchy AND the fundamentalists,and the monarchy is jailing them. That is another story.
What utter rot... Abdullard is *no* reformer, nor never has been. He is now, and has always been aligned with the more fundamentalist of the Wahhabi clerical establishment in "the Magic Kingdom". This is a fact that I've known personally since 1980, when I was living there.
At that time, Khalid was old, and in ill health, and the American community there were looking long and hard at who would replace the King. There were only two in the strong running, and they were Fahd, who *did* become king after Khalid died, and Abdullah. Fahd had the regular military, and a majority of the the royal family as backing, while Abdullah had the Saudi National Guard, and the majority of the Wahhabi clerical establishment as his backing. Bearing in mind that the *real* retrograde force against *any* "reform" in the Kingdom is the Wahhabi clerical establishment, how can anybody say that Abdullah is a reformer?
the infowarrior