* Oil wealth prosperity provides cushion, for now
* Saudi Arabia's role and stability will be key
* Brewing concern among Gulf populace
By Erika Solomon and Ulf Laessing
DUBAI/RIYADH, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The question being whispered in some Gulf Arab states that have long thought themselves immune from the type of popular uprising now convulsing Egypt is, "Could it ever happen here?"
As Egypt's political revolt unfolds and threatens to upend the Arab world's political status quo, it seems to be business as usual from Kuwait to Saudi Arabia: People commute to work on dusty roads, shop and eat at posh malls. But at home, they are glued to television images of chaos on the streets of Cairo.
Now, after eight days of relentless protests threatening to break the 30-year rule of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Gulf states cannot help but wonder how far unrest will spread and how that might impact their own rule.
"Before Egypt I would have been sceptical. With Tunisia, there was the sense it was somehow exceptional in that the lessons did not apply directly to other Arab countries," said Shadi Hamid, analyst at the Brookings Centre in Doha.
"The lesson here is that if it can happen in Egypt, it can happen anywhere. There was always a sense that the Egyptian regime was more unified and more ruthless, and would somehow find a way to push back, and I think we've been proven wrong."
Analysts mostly agree that Gulf countries are not at serious or immediate risk of revolt, and that could only happen if turmoil spreads first to the wider Arab world in countries such as Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Algeria and Libya.
Jordan's King Abdullah replaced his prime minister on Tuesday after protests over food prices and poor living conditions. Kazhakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev cast aside a plan that would have him rule unopposed for another decade and called for an early presidential vote.
Yemen and Sudan have also seen anti-government protests.
The massive oil and gas wealth of the Gulf states -- comprising Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman -- has fuelled a development boom that lifted much of the region into prosperity even as other Arab states struggle to raise living standards.
Gulf Arab rulers have offered their people relative affluence in exchange for political submission, but at the same time people realise that a fundamental shift is taking place.
Saudi Arabia -- which plays a pivotal role as the richest Arab nation and steward of Islam's holy sites -- is coming under greater scrutiny after it granted refuge to Tunisia's ousted ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz expressed support for Mubarak as protests intensified.
SAUDI ARABIA KEY
As the world's largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia has plenty of money to throw at most problems. It is three years into a ${esc.dollar}400 billion five-year plan to upgrade roads and infrastructure.
Yet, there are undercurrents of change.
"What is happening in Egypt is expected to happen in most Arab countries. Governments should now listen to the people as they are boiling and are awaiting only a spark," said a Saudi Arabian woman, shopping in a mall in the port city of Jeddah.
In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's second-largest city, a rare protest erupted over the weekend after heavy rains flooded the streets, cutting off electricity and sending stinking sewage into homes and businesses. It was swiftly crushed by police.
Saudi Arabia's absolute monarchy, which rules in a pact with conservative Wahhabi clerics, needs to provide jobs for its 18 million citizens -- two-thirds of whom are under the age of 30 -- and has gradually introduced measures to liberalise the economy and reduce the sway of hardline clerics.
"Saudi Arabia needs political reform whether this spreads or not," said Saudi political analyst Khalid al-Dakhil.
And sizeable marginalised populations in the Gulf, such as Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, could find inspiration in the growing people power of the region.
So far, Saudi media coverage of the unrest in Egypt has mostly focused on the looting and chaos in Cairo rather than the political reforms demanded by protesters.
Saudi newspapers have toned down the king's support of Mubarak after it became increasingly clear that the Egyptian ruler's grip on power was looking shaky.
As a key U.S. ally and influential bankroller for the Arab world, stability in Saudi Arabia is important not just for the region but the world as it shapes both political and oil policy.
In terms of timing, the revolt in Egypt could not have come at a worse time for King Abdullah, who left New York last week after undergoing medical treatment.
But the king is in Morocco, not Saudi Arabia, convalescing, leaving Crown Prince Sultan -- also suffering from undisclosed ailments -- in charge and raising concerns over succession.
That leaves Interior Minister Prince Nayef as a possible candidate for future king, a conservative who could roll back or slow the pace of Abdullah's reforms, diplomats say.
Eventually, the throne will have to be handed to a new generation of Saudi princes, and even though the king has set up an 'allegiance council' to regulate succession it is not clear when, or how that will work in practice.
By that time, the Arab political landscape surrounding Saudia Arabia could well be dramatically different.
"Arabs now know they have the power of revolt, the power of numbers. In that sense, the Arab world can never go back to what it was one month ago," said Hamid of Doha's Brookings Centre. "Every single regime will be by definition unstable from now until they fall." (Additional reporting by Mahmoud Habboush in Dubai and Asma Alsharif in Jeddah; Writing by Reed Stevenson; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
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