Saudis For Regime Change in Riyadh?

I think that this editorial in the Arab News must have had a slight change in meaning during translation. It's that or the author is, in an offhand and indirect way, predicting the downfall of the House of Saud.

The subject matter, the winners and losers in the Iraqi conflict, is a benign enough subject you would think. I decided to read the editorial simply to see how the Arabs might be viewing the outcome of the war. I was rather shocked to come across this short paragraph:

Also among the losers are other dictators who now know that, with the Cold War ended, there is no Soviet Union to rush to save them at the last moment. A trend has started in Iraq that is certain to continue until all the remaining dictatorial regimes are thrown into the dustbin of history.

This brings up an interesting question. What is the real difference between a dictatorship and a monarchy? Not a monarchy like the British model (the Brits are parliamentary - the monarch is only a figurehead), but a real live true monarchy like in Saudi Arabia or Jordan. Outside of a somewhat definitive line of succession, there really is no difference between the dictatorship of Saddam and the monarchial rule of the clown Princes of Riyadh. Both ruling parties exercise(d) absolute dominion over their subjects. It's just that in one system the leader was called "President" and the parasites around him were the "Party." In the other system, they call the ruler "King" and his cronies in crime, "Princes." Call Uday and Quasy (I think those were their names, not that it matters) princes and you would have had an Iraqi monarchy along the same lines of the Saudi one.

If “all the remaining dictatorial regimes” are to fall, Riyadh will experience a regime change. And probably fairly soon.

It's kind of odd to see the propaganda mouthpiece of a nation inadvertently acting pleased about the overthrow of a government not much different than theirs. They speak of the fall of the Middle Eastern tyrannies as though their demise is a foregone conclusion. Somehow, I don't think that they thought the process of domino regime change all the way through.

Calling water fire doesn't change what it really is. The pleasant fiction of a "Saudi monarchy" won't save them in the end.