I am struck by this story, in which the Saudi government claims it can't organize local elections with women participating,
Saudi Women Can't Vote, Run in Elections, while in Afghanistan many women voted in the Presidential election (about 40% of the voters were women, apparently). When watching the news story yesterday, there were many shots of long lines of women voting, or of women officials dealing with the ballot boxes. If the Afghans, living in a poor, still war-torn country, where women are definitely not equal to men, can manage to organize women's voting, then what excuse do the Saudis have? And these people are our allies!