Can U.S. Aid Dollars Promote Democracy

Shadi Hamid at Democracy Arsenal picks up on a point I made earlier concerning the argument about democracy promotion in the Middle East. I think the near term imperatives that require the cooperation of undemocratic regimes would swamp any attempt to cleverly use American aid to promote their liberalization.

Hamid says that cooperation and liberalization are not, in fact, mutually exclusive if you take a long enough time horizon:

It is true that any transition to democracy, to be considered as such, will have to ultimately result in peaceful rotation of power, but this would happen within the framework of an understanding between regime and opposition about the rules of the game, and would probably include power-sharing guarantees that would ensure that erstwhile autocrats maintain some influence in the new regime. But all of that is far, far down the road.

It's possible that the incumbent regimes will get to a place where they are willing to peacefully transition out of power. But outside of Egypt, which has a developed opposition, could something similar happen in Jordan or Saudi Arabia? I mean, what do you even call Saudi Arabia if the monarchy ends?