Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meeting the Emir of Qatar in Riyadh last month [photo credit: SPA]
Away from the international spotlight on MbS, there are signs that
the style of Saudi regional and foreign policymaking has undergone a
shift or, at the very least, a change in emphasis as political and
economic priorities have evolved. Most obvious has been the reconciliation
within the Gulf Cooperation Council following the ending of the
40-month rift with Qatar in January 2021. Saudi-Qatari bilateral ties
have improved farther and faster than Qatari relations with Bahrain and
the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar’s Emir Tamim has made at least three
subsequent visits to Saudi Arabia, most recently
for the Middle East Green Initiative which took place in Riyadh in
October. Saudi-Omani relations have also improved markedly in 2021 with
Sultan Haitham bin Tariq’s visit to the Kingdom in July considered a success and with major bilateral infrastructural projects making progress.
Further afield, the provision of Saudi economic support
for Egypt and Pakistan, in the form of renewed central bank deposits
and, in the case of Pakistan, extension of trade finance assistance, as
well as the ratcheting down of tensions
with Turkey, suggest a tactical readjustment in Riyadh to put greater
weight on political and economic coexistence after the decade of
geopolitical confrontation post Arab Spring. Like many of its current
and former regional adversaries, the leadership in Riyadh must focus on
domestic post-pandemic economic recovery and, in Mohammed bin Salman’s
case, the task is made more urgent by the need to generate tangible results for his vision of change as 2030 begins to loom into view.
For better of worse, MbS has staked his credibility on the premise
that he, and only he, has the vision and the drive to transform Saudi
Arabia economically and socially. Vision 2030, which he launched in 2016
while still Deputy Crown Prince, has become his calling card but it
also risks becoming a millstone around his neck should it fail to
produce favourable outcomes for Saudi citizens. It is through this lens
that recent efforts to pressure international firms to locate their regional headquarters in Saudi Arabia by 2024 and impose new tariffs
on imported goods made in regional free-zones must be seen. Both
measures are a shot across the bows of regional competitors, especially
the UAE, which also engaged in an acrimonious spat with Saudi Arabia
over oil quotas at the OPEC+ meeting in July.
Mohammed bin Salman, or at least the people around him who advise on
policy, appears to have recognized that the challenges of the 2020s –
not merely those arising from the pandemic but also from the need to
remain ahead of any eventual energy transition and global push on
climate politics – require a new approach that moves beyond the
contested geopolitics of the recent past. This is easier said than done,
as the protracted inability to identify an end to the Yemen war
consistent with Saudi security (to say nothing of political) interests
testifies. However, the multiple rounds of dialogue with Iran indicates a desire to come to a workable modus vivendi
with regional adversaries that would provide the crown prince the
breathing room he needs to refocus more heavily on domestic affairs and
deliver needed economic gains.
His ongoing entanglement in Yemen and lack of a direct relationship
with Biden have made it clear that Mohammed bin Salman cannot just turn a
new page and act as if the past five years had never happened. Policy
and political choices made between 2015 and 2020 cannot simply be undone
or wished away and will continue to have consequences that may be
unpalatable for him to swallow, especially if Iran retains the upper hand
or drives a hard bargain in negotiations for a regional rapprochement.
And yet, it will be domestic rather than foreign policy that Mohammed
bin Salman will be judged upon, both as Crown Prince and as eventual
King, and he needs to create the space to focus on the former as his
succession – and 2030 – draw inexorably closer.