2011 and 2012 brought the most widespread popular protests the Sultanate of Oman experienced since the end of the Dhofar war in the 1970s. The depth of the social malaise in the country was illustrated in particular by a series of two month-long peaceful sit-ins between February and mid-May 2011 – in front of the governor’s office in Salalah and of the Consultative council in Muscat; and at Sohar’s Globe Roundabout, on the Muscat-Dubai motorway – and by the massive crackdown on bloggers, intellectuals and human rights activists that punctuated the second half of 2012. In this perspective, this paper aims at understanding the strategies employed by the Omani regime to answer the challenges posed by these popular mobilizations. Since the 1970s, Sultan Qaboos’s legitimacy has relied on the double assimilation of all Oman to the state which remains master craftsman of economic and social development, and then of the state to the person of Qaboos himself. This political work on history has been aimed at “naturalizing” his rule. The extreme personalization of Oman’s political system since 1970 has accustomed many Omanis to the idea that their fate depends on Qaboos’s goodwill. In 2011 and 2012, the long-proven combination of relentless crackdowns and cosmetic reforms to quell dissonant voices allowed the regime to get the situation back under control in the short term and to prevent the implementation of substantial political changes. However the impact of the protests in the long run has proved as massive as these events were unexpected by many Omani officials. In particular, the authorities’ responses to these challenges are revealing of their disarray in the face of a development they had failed to anticipate and, even more, of the limits of the strategies of autocratic legitimization so far used. This paper is primarily based on the results of personal interviews with political, economic and social actors conducted in Oman since 2003, including fieldworks conducted in Sohar and Muscat in October 2011 and in November 2012.