They support terrorism an I'm not surprised you're thrilled with that.
Geeze... it sure would be nice if some of you actually read the OP article.. for once.
The heir apparent and his ailing Father are new to power in Saudi Arabia and they have made their first order of business pushing the Wahabists out of power, and culling the herd of the many corrupt princes dealing is criminal acts such as laundering money for Islamic radicals. They expect to recover $100 billion from these illicit schemes while, within the culture, promoting the rights of women, eliminating the moral police and freeing women to dress as they like, be seen with who they like and drive a car. The effect that such a softening of Saudi Law will have on Islamic culture worldwide would be huge given that they still hold the seat of the Islamic faith, and are the destination for millions of Muslims every year during the Hajj.
The only trick is the Prince, soon to be King will need to hold power for about 50 years in order to wash out the Wahabist power. Will that happen? Who knows. Iran's most recent moderate reform only lasted a few years.
Now stuff that isn't in the article:
Granted, Saudi Arabian Mullahs and Iran Mullahs have had an interesting campaign going on religiously for a while concerning which nation will be chosen by the Mahdi when he returns. Saudi Arabian Mullahs claim home field advantage since they hold Mecca, but Iran claims the hidden Imam (aka. The 12th Imam) was a Shiite Muslim, so they have built a highway leading to Tehran from the direction of Mecca. While they still believe that the Mahdi will appear in Mecca.... they expect he will drive to Tehran to claim it as the new center of the Muslim world. So toppling the Sunni side of the feud in Saudi Arabia may just further fuel the beliefs of Iranian Twelvers in their mission to bring about the conditions required for the emergence of the 12th Imam... and one of those conditions is all out war between infidels and Muslims all across the Middle East.
Interestingly, in Twelver lore, they are meant to LOSE that war before the Mahdi will come to their rescue. So starting an unwinnable war is
rational to Twelvers. Hell, one of the reason why Mecca is the holy center of Islam is because places like the wailing wall are soaked in the cultural pride of the time where -- stop me if you heard this somewhere else -- Islam was nearly wiped out, but on the brink of destruction Mecca held and Allah's armies lead a retribution against the infidels that reclaimed the whole region. They see that happening again, soon, only their destruction will be even closer to complete and their subsequent victory will be absolute.
Anyway, a moderate Saudi Arabia may spark more direct hostilities by Iran against them in an effort to pull the west into the final showdown.
No doubt they plan to have nukes by then.
