Bernard Haykel's Saudi Arabia In Transition

Chapter 7 in Bernard Haykel’s Saudi Arabia in Transition, the author addresses the subject of survival and life span of the Saudi regime by focusing on the instances in which oil is appealed in both the culture and politics of Saudi Arabia. A large portion of studies treat oil from a political point of view, the way the administration is structured followed by how income gathering allows the state to buy social peace through either winning over a large group or the creation of a generous system of entitlements. Therefore, the focal question that the author presents in this article is the question of survival of the Saudi administration since it is tied to oil and reserves. What frequently follows from the above two methodologies (co-optation and creation of generous entitlements) is the curse that plagues those countries who recieve a substantial amount of oil which affects the price of oil, whether it is adequately high to empower the state to continue in its entitlement policies or whether the price is too low for the state in the offing of a political crisis for them to continue in their entitilement policies.
Two key focuses that have been highlighted are: 1) Coherencies between al-Qaeda's talk on oil and the means of its abuse and, 2. The evolution of al Qaeda’s perspective of oil and the use of violent means to damage the global economy through attacks on Saudi facilities. The al-Qaeda's leaders qaddressed oil as an advantage for the Muslims, whether it should not be targeted or whether these reserves had become a liability for Muslims as their enemies were utilizing these to annihilate Islam