A Gulf Sheikh down coming?

[Dayuhan]

I think a key thing to remember is that revolution only seeks complete overthrow of the current system in the most extreme cases. Most often revolution simply seeks to place pressure on governments to make evolutions of governance that the government would prefer not to make.

Revolution

noun

1: a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system

OED. QED.

As to "Arab Spring," it is best not to think of "spring" as in the season, but rather spring as in the compressed, coiled populaces long held in situations deemed unacceptable - with the compression effect increasing in recent years as the populaces of the Middle East have evolved in their expectations of governance far more rapidly than the governments of the region have been willing to evolve.

Are you putting "the populaces of the Middle East" together in a generic basket? I'm not sure that's a good idea, nor is it a good idea to assume that anyone's "expectations of governance" are what yours would be in their place.

The pressure in Saudi Arabia is much greater than is healthy for a society.

Based on what evidence? Seems to me the pressure has ratcheted down very considerably from the 90s, when things really felt like they could blow at any minute.

They seek to buy that pressure down. They export trouble makers to go to places like Yemen and Pakistan to raise trouble elsewhere; they turn a blind eye to the funding of organizations that either directly or indirectly fund illegal agents of political change, such as AQ. They diligently and ruthlessly identify and arrest any who show signs of attempting to organize movement against the government.

Yes, they do. Efforts to organize against government, though, have so far involved fairly small groups and a fair portion of the populace actually sees them as a threat and supports the government's aggressive moves against them. I see little evidence suggesting a rapidly spreading or expanding anti-government movement. I suspect that this is less because the government is liked (it isn't) than because these movements have nothing to offer that the populace wants and because the fear of instability outweighs the dislike of government.

adopt measures that give the populace a greater voice in how they are governed. Perhaps. Doing so would do wonders to reduce the pressure on the "Arab Spring" of the Saudi populace.

By what right or knowledge do you speak for the Saudi populace? Do you assume that "a greater voice in how they are governed" tops all popular agendas, everywhere?

Highly effective governments that are equally highly rigid and out of touch with an evolving populace are every bit as susceptible to revolution as are highly ineffective governments. Just ask King George of England.

Are they out of touch with the populace, or out of touch with your view of the populace? I suspect that they may have a better handle on their populace than you do. They know that the bulk of the populace is fairly comfortable, quite conservative, and generally terrified of any change that might threaten what they have. They also know that as long as the people are comfortable dissent is likely to remain confined to ideological fringes that have little appeal to the mainstream. How long they'll get away with it is anyone's guess. I could be wrong, but I suspect they'll get away with it longer than you think. Again, the key is to look not only at what people want, but also at what they fear. Do those who pose themselves as an alternative to the royals offer the populace what they want, or what they fear? It makes a difference.

There are a whole lot of people in The Kingdom who will gladly send money and praise to sustain AQ in their fight against the infidel, as long as that fight is somewhere else. That doesn't mean they want AQ in charge of The Kingdom. Most of them know all too well where that would lead, and I don't think they don't want to go there.

[Bob's World]

So now we must dogmatically cling to what dictionaries tell us? LMFAO at that. I prefer to rely on the reality of the matter, and the reality is as I described revolution, not as your dictionary defines them. I would expect such an argument from a SAMS graduate, but I expect a bit more willing to think outside the lines from you.

When I say "populaces of the Middle East" that is plural. If I wanted to lump them into one homogeneous blob as you suggest I would have said "the populace of the Middle East." But of course I didn't say that. The many diverse populaces of the Middle East are evolving and demanding more of government. The facts support that. The many diverse populaces of Saudi Arabia are no exception, no matter how much their government and ours likes to hope and pretend they are.

Etc, etc. Your counter points are all equally groundless attempts to twist my meanings to fit the points you want to argue against. Not sure what to do with that. I do, however, stand by the positions made in my original post. If you actually want to discuss those, I am happy to do so.

[Dayuhan]

So now we must dogmatically cling to what dictionaries tell us? LMFAO at that. I prefer to rely on the reality of the matter, and the reality is as I described revolution, not as your dictionary defines them.

You can't have a discussion without consensus on what the basic terms mean. Changing definitions is not "thinking outside the box", it's simply an effort to skew the argument in a direction you want it to go.

Claiming that there is a revolution or insurgency ongoing in Saudi Arabia (or China, or North Korea, or Iran, or Qatar, or any number of others, is simply wrong: it is incompatible with the generally accepted definitions of those terms. You could say that circumstances in any or all of those countries are conducive to revolution. You could say they are ripe for revolution. You could say that there is substantial dissent and that the regimes in question are creating a risk of revolution or insurgency by suppressing that dissent instead of addressing its causes. You couild say that the symptoms of oncoming revolution are on display. In any of those cases you'd have to explain why you believe that, and ideally produce some evidence to support the claim. But to say that revolution or insurgency are actually ongoing in those places on the basis of revised definitions that are unique to you is simply confusing the issue.

There's plenty of scope for thinking outside the box without trying to change the language. It's a very versatile language with a wealth of terminology at hand. There's no need to dilute or devalue existing terms by redefining them in midstream or expanding their definitions to a point that deprives them of utility.

/rant

When I say "populaces of the Middle East" that is plural. If I wanted to lump them into one homogeneous blob as you suggest I would have said "the populace of the Middle East." But of course I didn't say that. The many diverse populaces of the Middle East are evolving and demanding more of government. The facts support that.

The evolution and the demands are very different among very different populaces, and to assume that they are all evolving in the same direction, or that they all have identical or even similar demands, is to lump multiple populaces together in a homogeneous blob.

The many diverse populaces of Saudi Arabia are no exception, no matter how much their government and ours likes to hope and pretend they are.

Again I think you're making assumptions about the direction of popular evolution and the nature of popular demands that are based less on evidence than on your own ideas of what a populace ought to want. I remain unconvinced that circumstances on the ground actually fit those assumptions.

I do not maintain that the Saudi populaces love their government, far from it. I do think that while dissent is widespread, the tendency of that dissent to develop into broad coherent action, and the ability of dissenting movements to gain traction with the mainstream population are being restrained by a number of factors that you aren't acknowledging. I suspect that you may be adjusting reality to fit the model, rather than adjusting the model to fit the reality on the ground.