We Better Hope Saudi Arabia Isn’t Next

King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia. Photo: wiki commons.

As Egypt goes, so goes the Arab world. With 83 million people in its midst, Egypt stands as the most populous and important nation in the Arab world. Its impact on the region is critical for the stability and prosperity of the world and when the Egyptian Arab spring started in Tahrir Square, I exchanged correspondence with some important players in European diplomacy voicing concern for the stability of Egypt and their attitude towards President Mubarak.

I was informed that all were concerned about the development in Egypt and that they felt that Mubarak would overcome this wave of protest. To my dismay a few weeks later, these experts were proven wrong and the abandonment of Mubarak by western powers started to unfold at an alarming rate driven partially by Washington and President Obama.

The result of the election in Egypt this week was not predicted at that time by any of these experts as they believed that the democratic forces of the young generation would be able to establish themselves as the new voice of Egypt.  Thus, all felt confident that Egypt had a bright democratic future, inspired by the developments in Tunisia where a so called “moderate Islamic party” won the election.

This Muslim Brotherhood victory in the Presidential election is the beginning of a catastrophic domino effect for the region, first and foremost for the Saudi royal family. The victory of a Sunni Islamic religious party like the Muslim brotherhood is the worst case scenario for the balance of power in the peninsula. The old agreement of shared power between the religious authority in Saudi Arabia and the royal family can now be shattered with the result of this election in Egypt. Saudi citizens can be inspired to challenge the royal family and install an Islamic republic in the Arab peninsula, and then all bets are off. It is evident that with time the power of the Egyptian army will erode as they have no doctrine nor philosophy to back their quest for power, only the exercise of the economic privileges within the Egyptian economy , and this is inspired by greed and corruption more than justice.

For the first time in an Arab nation’s history, a religious extremist party has won the massive support of it electorate and that is for any Saudi royal a very worrisome premise as it can be the beginning of the next domino.

Clearly the Saudi Royal family is the next objective or goal of this massive Arab wave of discontent, and how long the regime will be able to maintain itself in front of this unstoppable popular Islamic revolution is anyone’s guess.

If Saudi Arabia goes with an Islamic Sunnite revolution,  all hell will brake loose for the world and its economic stability. We, Western democracies have never been so close to a disaster as we are now. Washington and its allies never understood the stupidity of letting loose the power of an Islamic radical undercurrent and its repercussions for peace and stability.