Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greets Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan upon his arrival in Jeddah, 28 April 2022
MbS’s international isolation was broken last December when French
President Emmanuel Macron became the first Western head of state to visit Riyadh
and publicly meet with the Saudi crown prince. Although the visit was
driven by a desire on the part of Macron to discuss the crisis in
Lebanon, it was a public demonstration of MbS’s relevance in spite of
Biden’s attitude.
The stand-off between Biden and MbS continued until the outbreak of
the war in Ukraine. With oil prices spiking dramatically Washington
became very keen to speak with Riyadh. There was talk of attempts at
telephone calls between the president and MbS with the latter, in an
ironic twist, declining to take the president’s call.
Instead, the crown prince received UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson
who became the second Western leader to visit him in Riyadh. Although
Johnson had set out to convince MbS to raise oil production, the visit
itself laid bare the increasing difficulty for the international
community to ignore Saudi Arabia and isolate its leadership. And last
week Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became the third world leader to make the journey to Riyadh as the prince’s rehabilitation continues to build pace.
However, it is not only in relationships with heads of state that MbS
is experiencing a sudden change of fortune. Since reconciling with
Qatar, influential Qatari media outlets have significantly toned down
their criticism of his policies while Doha appears to be altering the
narrative regarding its association with the Muslim Brotherhood. Former
Qatari Prime Minister Hamad Bin Jassim told Kuwait’s Al-Qabas in an interview
that: “the Muslim Brotherhood might be trusted to run a shop, but not a
state”. Ahead of his visit to the kingdom, Turkey’s Erdoğan was busy
chasing reconciliation and offering concessions including the imposition
of restrictions on the activity of opposition figures in Istanbul and,
as well, he ordered the State Prosecutor to halt the proceedings in the Khashoggi case and allow its transfer to the Saudi authorities.
Even in Yemen, MbS has seen an improvement in his fortunes. US
officials have been stunned at the lack of reciprocity from the Houthis
to American overtures for talks, despite Biden’s lifting of the terrorist designation. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken even reportedly apologised to UAE’s crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed on behalf of Biden for not taking a firmer stance against the Houthis following their attack on Abu Dhabi.
More importantly, MbS and the UAE’s MbZ have successfully managed to
engineer a reconfiguring of the power dynamics in Yemen’s
internationally-recognised government by imposing a new ‘Presidential Leadership Council’
that resoundingly chains the Islah (Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood), and
elevates Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s allies. Vice President Ali Mohsen
Al-Ahmar of the Islah has been removed, while Saudi and UAE allies
Aidrous Al-Zubeidi of the separatist Southern Transitional Council,
Tareq Salah (the nephew of former Yemen strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh)
and Abu Zara'a al-Muharrami of the ‘Giants Brigade’ that broke the Houthi offensive
in Ma’rib, have all been elevated. The leadership council also sets the
stage for more pragmatic negotiations on Yemen geared towards
recognising individual fiefdoms and autonomous regions as opposed to
restoring a unified authority in Sanaa. Such an outcome is more in line
with Saudi Arabia’s historical position on Yemen which has always been
against unification.
Domestically, the crown prince has been able to forcefully accelerate
his de-Islamisation drive. The Saudi General Entertainment Authority
has sought to break taboos by inviting raunchy entertainers such as Nicki Minaj to perform in the kingdom. A ban on the use of loudspeakers
for Quranic recitations in mosques is in place, with an exemption for
them to be used for the call to prayer provided they are only used at a
third of their volume. In Jeddah, also known as the ‘gate of Mecca’, the
first Saudi bikini beach has been introduced.
The crown prince has also altered the history of Saudi Arabia in a
bid to disassociate the Saudi identity from the Islamic fervour that
drove its establishment. The date of the founding of the kingdom
has been changed from 1744 to 1727 in a bid to erase the role of
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and present a revised history in which the
founding is held to be a uniquely nationalist endeavour by Al Saud, one
that denies that the Islamic fervour of Abd al-Wahhab was an essential
pillar of the state.
The policy of imprisoning swathes of opponents also appears to have
had the desired effect of silencing domestic dissent and it comes at a
time when in Western policy-making circles the utility of Saudi Arabia
and MbS is taking clear precedence over the issue of human rights. This
is only likely to continue as global energy prices complicate the
fortunes of Western governments with the cost of living inexorably
increasing.
Economically, the surge in oil price has provided a welcome relief
for Saudi officials. As well, the kingdom has been able to maintain
unity with the OPEC+ bloc to ensure that no concessions are made that
might adversely affect the price. Moreover, more companies are beginning
to present tenders for NEOM with reports of construction already under
way on projects such as ‘The Line’.
It is important to stress however, that much of MbS’s improving
fortunes have not necessarily been brought about because of his
policies, but rather thanks to a reversal of fortunes for his
antagonists (notably Biden). Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly
apparent that the crown prince is certainly not the ‘pariah’ Biden
promised to make him, and that with the passing of time, there is a
clear trajectory towards a normalisation that seemed quite distant only
last year.