susceptible to bribes they were sent off to do jihad elsewhere or to contemplate their errors in prison and re-education camps. One has to only look at the kleptocracy that goes by the name Al Saud Inc. to understand the frustrations of the people. Each of the major royals gets a monthly bursary of $270,000 while minor royals get $800 per month (with a bonus of $3 million at marriage and at the construction of a palace). Of the total Saudi budget of $40 billion, $2 billion goes to the core of the al-Saud family itself, who are, the US Embassy in Riyadh complained, “more adept at squandering than accumulating wealth.” Popular revulsion against this kind of expenditure is quite general. As Egypt rumbled, the regime put into place its typical maneuvers. Pre-emptive arrests removed some of the typical culprits. Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz met with Saudi newspaper editors and told them that the events in Egypt were the work of outsiders, a theme familiar to tyrants. His half-brother, the King, hastily opened the family’s treasury and disbursed $36 billion to quell the economic worries. The official opposition formed a platform of unity: it included the Islamic Umma Party (led by ten well-regarded clerics), the National Declaration of Reform (led by Mohammed Sayed Tayib), al-Dusturieen (a lawyers movement led by Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz) and a host of reform websites (such as dawlaty.info and saudireform.com). The Islamic Umma Party’s Abdul Aziz Mohammed al-Wohaibi told the Christian Science Monitor, “We think the royal family is not the only one who has the right to be leader of the country. We should treat the royal family like any other group. No special treatment.” This was heresy.
