Are you operating from the premise that a non-monarchy is strictly and uniformly superior? Or that figurehead monarchs are bad? With the former I beg to differ, having lived in the Middle East for a significant portion of my life. With the latter, well, maybe, it's a marginal cost to keep many traditionalists and culturally conservative members of a very proud people sated.
Strangely (to me) people sing the praises of democracy and disparage their existing democratically elected government with the same breath. And most citizens of countries led by monarchs have far less to complain about governance (and not, as many keyboard pundits may guess, because of something crass like they'd get executed for voicing dissent).
I'm not going to claim either system is superior to the other, but I think it's a stretch to call the existence of monarchies "embarrassing"
Strangely (to me) people sing the praises of democracy and disparage their existing democratically elected government with the same breath. And most citizens of countries led by monarchs have far less to complain about governance (and not, as many keyboard pundits may guess, because of something crass like they'd get executed for voicing dissent).
I'm not going to claim either system is superior to the other, but I think it's a stretch to call the existence of monarchies "embarrassing"