Can the richest of all the Arab royal families stem the tide of reform?

lest not forget the mastermind behind the 9/11 incident are majority
Saudi citizens.
King Abdullah demise is matter of time. Hope so!!

Unfortunately I think the Gulf Monarchies, with the possible exception of Bahrain, will be able to largely stem the tide of the Jasmine Revolution as they have more tools to "stablize" their countrymen then their other Arab counterparts. Saudi Arabia cannot only hide behind the theology of it´s government but can also spend lavishly to shutup their opponents on a scale no other country in the region could possibly dream of. The Saudis do not hide the fact that they are authoritarians like Mubarak or Gaddafi, their kingdom is founded on their divine right to rule. They can thus not be accused of hypocricy and count on the large amounts of people who benefit from their clientalist state to protect them.

"...founded on their divine right to rule." It's more like hijacked by the Al-Saud family. Almost all non-Arabs don't even see the connect: the 'Saudi' part of Saudi Arabia comes from the Al-Saud family.

Here lies the true cancer of the Arab world: the gulf countries led by Saudi. Corrupt dictatorships enjoying unlimited support by the west mainly US/UK/France, with absolute power and zero democracy. Clearly the two main factors that labeled western supporters 'sitting on the fence' in regards to their stance on north African trio (initially) are oil and Israel.

The Arab people are so humiliated and left behind (in the dark) for several decades, all due to the safeguarding of the two primary interests mentioned above. For that, other Arab regimes were supported and protected in the same way (regardless of oil or activity with Isreal); logically fearing a contagion from North Africa/Levant to the cancerous gulf states.

The days of monopolizing news and information are over. Arab governments have shot themselves in the foot. Populations are largely young and internet savvy, and are sending the message that they wont put up with it any more. If the Gulf collapses, eventually it will be a much better world for all the Arabs.

One of the reasons nobody saw the events in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya was because intelligence is gained by a bunch of old privileged people talking to a bunch of old privileged people. They knew nothing.

One of your paragraphs above states that 70% of Saudis are under 30, in a country ruled by a bunch of old men. I doubt whether the old men have any idea what is simmering there amongst the young, unemployed, Shia majority. But maybe the Stock Market does.

Sounds to me like it's not a matter of "if" there is a revolution in Saudi Arabia, rather the question is "when?" How violent of a revolt it ultimately be depends on how tightly the aristocracy attempts to hang on to their position. Let's hope for everyone's sake they can recognize this and choose to make the transition as smooth as possible.