Definitely. Shia in the Kingdom have declared independence. No shooting yet, but that’s because the Shia tend to be the armed forces in the country. By the end of the 1980s/early 1990s, Saudi Arabia had accumulated more weapons than there was reasonable expectation they could ever scrape up enough soldiers to even use. The country is such a bunch of bone-idle bums (P.J. O’Rourke’s phrase) that nearly a fifth of the population of the Kingdom is guest workers, who do the actual work of the society while all the bills get paid for the citizens by people in the United States and other countries which import petroleum.
“The country is such a bunch of bone-idle bums. . .” Well said! I was on a US Navy warship that was training Saudi sailors. We were tying up at a pier (a pretty critical phase of ship handling) and all the Saudis handling lines just stopped and dropped them in water!!! After the screaming and yelling stopped it was determined that it was prayer time and they were done!!! If I wouldn’t have seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it.
Sau3di Shi3a have never declared independence regardless of Iran’s wishful thinking. Their riots are brutally crushed & people are arrested there for the slightest subversion. The military (really various “departments” each headed by & loyal to a different prince) has a backbone of tribal bedouin who are brave but useless outside of raid scenarios. Many can’t even swim or be bothered to show up for any kind of training. But they are excellent at putting down Shi3a demonstrations & beat their skulls in with the greatest pleasure. What the Shi3a do is work (but they are barred from important positions). The others don’t like work, the more of a tribal background they have, the more adverse they are to working.