ABDALLAH LAUNCHES YET ANOTHER INITIATIVE

Crown Prince Abdallah tried yet again to absorb popular disquiet and placate America's uncertain drive for reform.  The Crown Prince launched the Mithaq al-Islah al-Wad' al-'Arabi (The Declaration of Reform of the [Political] Condition).  SPC estimates that the Crown Prince now has a think tank that doesn't sleep a night before designing yet another progressive idea.  But this idea has the advantage of (hopefully) placating the United States' equally impractical (and eminently non-serious) call for reform. 

Abdallah presented the Mithaq to the Arab League. The more important part of the Mithaq is its call for the adoption by the member-states of reforms, and the widening of political participation. Without spending too much ink on this initiative, SPC predicts its quiet death. 

Take the Kingdom, for example:  to execute his initiative, the well-meaning Crown Prince will have to jump over the entrenched centers of power.  (These are: Sultan at Defense, Nayif at Interior (Justice) and a son of King Fahd's at the Royal palace).   These centers have their own ideas about how things should be done, and are likely to see the Prince's initiative as a means to subdue them. 

Additionally, the Crown Prince will have to deal with the powerful religious establishment, well-entrenched, which will fight any diminishment of its power. 

Historically, other ideas for Saudi reform had evaporated just as soon as they were launched.   They were conceived to deal with the tension brought about by internal or external events, and they died a convenient and quiet death.