David Patraeus thinks that this is one of the most unreported "story" in the world: the progressivenss of Gulf monarchies

"Since the Arab Spring began, in fact, the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have launched numerous initiatives to open their societies to outside thinking and to improve the rights of women and religious minorities. Qatar has led the way in education, establishing branches of Georgetown, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon and Texas A&M, and commencing work on a number of world-class museums. Although officially a Wahhabi monarchy, Qatar has also granted Christians freedom of worship and allowed the construction of several churches. In the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi hosts branches of the Sorbonne, New York University and the New York Institute of Technology and has begun construction of branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim. Meanwhile, Dubai hosts numerous Western institutions of higher learning and the UAE, as in Qatar, grants freedom of worship to Christians and the construction of churches. Similar situations exist, to varying degrees, in Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman, although they are somewhat less open to international intellectual influence than are Qatar and the UAE. Nonetheless, in five of the six GCC monarchies—Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and Oman—women are allowed to drive, work and own businesses. Saudi Arabia, the most conservative of the GCC monarchies, is starting to catch up with its neighbors, thanks in large part to the leadership of King Abdullah. Saudi Arabia is investing massively in women’s education and has opened its first coeducational university, the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology. It is also sending tens of thousands of university students to study abroad, including some 45,000 in the United States. While women do not have the right to drive yet, they now make up more than half of Saudi university students and they may work and own businesses."