A Brave King - Part Three - Playing out a possible future

Could Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud be the leader to unite the Arab world?  Well, that is an interesting topic to speculate about.  We are at a point in history where some circumstances have arisen that would make the unification of the Arab world, or at least a decent part of it, more likely than it has been since the time of Nasser.  To begin with the Arab world has rarely been more in need of leadership with chaos and civil war reigning in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and large regions of other Arab countries.  Also one might argue that  Saudi Arabia currently enjoys a supremacy in terms of Arab leadership that not even Nasser's Egypt enjoyed, with the total lack of any strong rival for influence.  Algeria would be the next strongest Arab Sunni state, but it is located in the Maghreb, far from the Middle East, the hub of the Arab world.

 One can definitely  say that Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has already achieved an impressive feat of Arab unity in bringing a coalition of 10 Arab states together to fight a war in Yemen.  How much further could he go?

Let us post a speculative history for Saudi Arabia's near future.
a.   A period of honing military prowess and cementing one's position at the top of the regional power hegemony by leading a military coalition in Yemen.
b.   Taking control of the lands of the Islamic State after that group has been worn down by international attacks.

This would be a fine point for Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to stop and rest on his laurels, and given his age one might say this would be about where you would expect him to stop.  As he is 79 one would assume he could not really expect any more than ten good years and it would be possible for Saudi Arabia to get to this point within ten years.
The next big step for Saudi Arabia to take would be to seize the rest of Syria, but there would be big questions over whether that would be a wise step. Incorporating a large secularised population like Damascus could have a destabilizing effect within Saudi Arabia as already discussed in previous articles.  Oddly enough though Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's age might make him more likely to take the step than others given that being the Arab leader to reunite Mecca and Damascus would make his name stand tall in posterity and he might reason that he probably won't be around long enough to deal with any messy consequences.

c    Taking control of the west of Syria will lead naturally into the need to dominate Lebanon as well.
d   With the respect earned from its previous victories and expansions Saudi Arabia, under whatever leader, may find itself with such prestige among the Arab populations of its remaining neighbours that all sorts of possibilities present themselves.