Muhammad bin Salman, prime minister and heir to the throne of Saudi Arabia, makes sense. He needs to put out the fires he himself has started in the Middle East if Vision 2030, the project he launched in 2016 to ensure the kingdom’s viability beyond oil, is to succeed.
Muhammad bin Salman, better known by the initials MBS, is a reformist, and his model is none other than that of Chinese President Xi Jinping: progress and authoritarianism with certain civil liberties. He wants to modernize the young Saudi society, attract tourism and workers in the technology sector, and he also wants a place of privilege on the international board, along with countries such as India and Brazil.
To achieve this, it needs a new strategy, more pragmatic in the political sphere and better publicized in the commercial sphere.
The aggressive defense minister who in 2015 bombed Yemen and supported Islamist rebels in Syria, the prince who gained access to the antechamber of absolute power because he swept away better-placed relatives than him, the ruler who blockaded Qatar, kidnapped the prime minister of Lebanon and ordered the assassination of a prominent journalist in the Istanbul consulate, he needs to be forgiven for these and other sins. He is 37 years old and may rule for decades.
“He is not a reformist”, says Javier MartÃn, author of La Casa de Saud (Catarata). “Everything he is doing, the mega projects like the city of Neom, the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo and the offer to Lionel Messi, who is already the ambassador of the kingdom, is a smoke screen to hide the violation of human rights and repression interior”.
Amnesty International claims that Saudi Arabia tripled the number of executions last year. There were 196, the highest number in 30 years. In one day alone, the regime executed 81 people. This internal violence contrasts with social reforms and external openness.
70% of the almost 40 million inhabitants are under 30 years old. They are young people who demand more civil liberties and jobs with more added value.
Two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia sent its first two astronauts to the International Space Station, and one of them was a woman. It has undoubtedly been a great scientific breakthrough, but also a recognition of Vision 2030 and the rejuvenated kingdom that the crown prince wants.
The strategic program is halfway there, but moving forward with a very fair amount of time and money. If the objective is to diversify the economy, it is not achieving it. The IMF estimates that oil still accounts for 40% of GDP and 75% of budget revenues.
When it was a hundred dollars a barrel, like a year ago, the numbers fit better. But now, despite all Bin Salman’s efforts to raise its price, it does not reach $80. The profits of Aramco, the national oil company, have fallen by 20% in the first quarter of the year.
The prince has known for some time that he must better manage his political ambitions in order to carry out Vision 2030. The rivalry with Iran, the main enemy, is a huge burden on the State’s coffers. That’s why I wanted a diplomatic agreement for two years. He negotiated in Iraq and Oman, sometimes with the help of France, and on March 10 Beijing announced the resumption of relations suspended since 2016.
The agreement still has to overcome many obstacles, but it is a big step towards stability in the Middle East. It is also the fact that MBS has recovered the relationship with Turkey and Qatar, has reconciled with Syrian President Baixar al-Assad, whom he has readmitted to the Arab League, and is looking for an exit from the war in Yemen, where during eight years their planes have bombed hospitals and schools and have caused 400,000 deaths and, according to the UN, one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world
Iran is now a nuclear power. It has enough enriched uranium to make several atomic bombs. Saudi Arabia would be the main target in the event of war, a conflict that, as Bin Salman has acknowledged, would shoot up the price of oil and cause “a total collapse of the world economy.”
The March 10 photo in Beijing opens a door to stability in the region. China has succeeded where the United States failed because it has more influence. In fact, it is the main trading partner of the Iranians and Saudis.
The Saudi prince opens up to China and also to Russia, with whom he is scheming to keep the price of oil high. As Yasmine Faruk of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explains, new relationships need to be established. “The US will continue to be an important partner in terms of security, but it cannot continue to depend on the US as it has been,” he says.
“The geostrategic struggle between the US and China – adds Faruk – as well as the western isolation of Iran and Russia, is uniting these three countries. The March 10 agreement allows Saudi Arabia not to be caught in the middle of an escalation of Western tensions with China, Iran and Russia.”
The big pending subject for the Saudi heir is to recognize Israel. “For more than 40 years, Israel and Saudi Arabia have cooperated on various fronts, especially in the area of ​​security – says Javier MartÃn-. But, without a solution for the Palestinian cause, there is little room to normalize this relationship.”
Bin Salman does not need to open an embassy in Israel to complete Vision 2030, the project that must establish the future reign. It is enough to buy its technology, as it is already doing.
“Petrodollars buy everything”, observes Javier MartÃn. Even a new balance in the Middle East.
