Can you really talk about change then a blogger is sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1 000 lashes for insulting Islam? You also have to consider that the Saudis mean with insulting Islam. It is not the western type of painting picture of Mohammed instead the blogger just questioned if the the Saudi goverment had the right to meddle in people's personal lives.
Then it comes to woman, that yes they of 2015 will be able to vote in local election. But is that really a big triumph for woman? That the only other country that have elections for only men is the Vatican city. At the same time after 40 years of close ties to USA, woman in Saudi Arabia are not for example allowed to drive a car, be in a public place without a male chaperone, go for a swim or even buy a barbie doll. That life can even be better for woman in Iran. For example in Iran you even have woman racing drivers. In Saudi Arabia you probably would get wiped only thinking of that idea.
Eleven things women in Saudi Arabia can't do | News | The Week UK
Women's rights in Iran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Women's rights in Saudi Arabia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Also it can be hard to have an organized moderate opposition in Saudi Arabia, then any attempt to question the fundamentalist brainwash of the regime is met with the whip and imprisonment. Even if you have some brave souls like the blogger. The risk are instead that you end up with people believing so much in the fundamelist brainwash that the strongly object to fact that Saudi Arabia is protected by "American infidels". Like for example Osama bin Ladin that used his share of his Saudi familly fortune to declare holy war against the USA.
Also Saudi Arabia is not only content with Saudi Arabia being a fundamentalist country. That they also use the oil money to spread fundamentalist islamic beliefs around the world.
Analyses - Madrassas | PBS - Saudi Time Bomb? | FRONTLINE | PBS