Of course it will. Someday, there won't be enough bread and circuses and sinecures for all of the extended offshoots of the House of Saud, and somebody will stir up popular, probably religious, discontent, or else a disaffected faction of the government/royalty will stage a coup.
Besides that, it is a regime, and really, a nation, that is entirely predicated on petro-dollars. They have been fighting a price war against US/Canadian oil production, burning foreign currency reserves, in the hopes of setting back the clock. Unfortunately, the break-even point in the North Dakota and shale oil fields keeps going down[1].
> it is a regime, and really, a nation, that is entirely predicated on petro-dollars
There was a HN article[1] a few months ago, on the efforts to move Saudi Arabia away from reliance on oil income. Although who can say how successful that effort will be.
The Saudis will eventually fall, but thats not gone be anytime soon. If the carrot does not work anymore, they have the stick. Just look at Saddam, he was not popular but managed to remain in power for a long time. The Saudis have more money, and a easier to repress, less divided population.
The stick has to be paid too--otherwise things don't go very well for those who wield it. Saddam at least had enough of a domestic economy to tax to pay for the security services, as well as a loyal extended family that actually did some of the grunt work, whereas it is doubtful the Saudis have either.
The Saudis are sitting on the largest reserves in the world. They are profitable at the lowest prices. They have money for the stick and the carrot in excess and will be so long as oil has relevance.
> If the carrot does not work anymore, they have the stick.
Not really; while they've spent a lot of money of hardware to use as the stick, they House of Saud lacks the loyalty of enough of the population for the stick to be the primary control -- they need a lot of carrot to even keep the trigger fingers that would apply the stick on their side, which is a lot of the reason for all the accommodation the regime makes with religious extremists.
