Prometheus 6

Tacitus had lunch with a credible associate and came away with the following:

• Most of what's written in the blogosphere about Saudi Arabia is just wrong.
• Overt Islamic religiosity of high officials is frequently cover for personal corruption.
• The defining event that shapes domestic policy for the Saudi royals is the Iranian revolution of 1979, which they interpret as the revolt of a conservative populace against a modernizing monarchy. They feel genuinely constrained by popular feeling from undertaking liberalizations -- such as allowing women to drive, which is apparently a major issue -- that they would like.
• There is little if any prior censorship in the Saudi press, which is generally more free than we might believe from reports in the US. (As a corollary, he's caught MEMRI in some fairly significant mistranslations of that press.)
• Satellite TV stations like al-Jazeera are hugely important motors of social progress and modernization in the entire region, whatever we may think of them here.
• Oil is not the dominant factor in our relationship with the Saudis. That would be our perception of Saudi influence over the world's Islamic populations; second to that is our need to maintain military overflight and logistical access rights; and then comes oil.