The Leverett's have a new piece up on THE ARAB SPRING AND THE SAUDI COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
I disagree with it. The counter-revolution is not a sole Saudi project. While the Saudis princes are miffed about Obama and his, in their opinion, too early call for Mubarak to go, their mere existence depends too much on U.S. goodwill to act independently. The counter-revolution is a joint U.S.-Saudi project with a major U.S. motive of keeping the Middle East secure for Israel. Genuine democracy in any country there would endanger Israel's existence.
The Saudis were allowed to invade Bahrain and to suppress the Shia majority there without any critical word from Washington. As a thank you Obama got an Arab League vote that allowed him to attack Libya, practice regime change there by installing a bunch of dependable natives and to then steal its oil.
Both parties agree that Saleh in Yemen has to go as he has been incompetent to suppress the U.S. concern in Yemen, the alleged Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, and the Saudi concern, the Houthi tribes with their Zaidi Shia believe.
The Saudis are financing the gangs in Syria who try to take down the Syrian regime. Jordon and Israel seem to be involved in those efforts. If Assad falls (I do not think that he will) Hariri can be reinstalled in Lebanon as the Saudi tool he always was.
Egypt is still a military dictatorship. If some sort of meaningful elections will be allowed to happen there, then only if it is ensured that all possibly winning candidates are bought by either Riyadh, Washington or both. The U.S. already offered $150 million for that project.
A part of the Saudi-U.S. deal that is not yet fully visible is a new agreement about Afghanistan. Prince Bandar was recently in Pakistan and asked the Pakistani to keep a division of troops ready for the eventual use in Saudi Arabia. The Pakistanis agreed to that but had a price.
Then suddenly all the top people of Pakistan visited Kabul and astonishingly agreed with Karzai about the "reintegration" of Taliban. Pat Lang thinks that as part of some deal south Afghanistan will be handed to the Taliban when, in the next few month, the U.S. starts to reduce troops from there. This deal was certainly not made without U.S. involvement.
The revolutionary wave was stopped for now. Further revolts will get suppressed or, where convenient, channeled into directions the U.S. and Saudis can agree upon. This counter-revolution scheme may be successful for a while. I doubt though that it will be able to hold as a permanent solution.