The Saudi prince: how dangerous is MBS?

is this one of the world's most dangerous millennials muhammad bin salman crown prince of saudi arabia better known as mbs to some he's a revolutionary who has transformed life in saudi arabia especially for women to others he's a butcher who fueled a bloody war in yemen and the cia believes approved an operation to kill or capture a washington post journalist who was cut up with a bone soul now thanks to the global energy crisis the crown prince looks stronger than ever and world leaders are queuing up to get their hands on his oil i think

the kingdom is in a uniquely uh powerful position with what is happening in ukraine so what will he do next mbs is a very dangerous man who is becoming more dangerous because of the power he's accumulating after hours in saudi arabia men and women mixing freely and a female dj on the decks the economists nicholas pelham was filming the scene i think i had to do a double take it was really quite an astonishing sight just a few years ago all this would have been illegal public entertainment was banned and unmarried men and women were

not allowed to socialize saudi arabia for all the time that i've known it until about the last five or six years has been a society where public sport space was ruled by religious police what i found so hard to grapple with was just how normal it all felt i don't understand how you can live with one set of values and then to plant them with another as if nothing had really happened in the past saudi arabia was governed according to a strict interpretation of islam clerics controlled everything from social life to the role of women

the kingdom uh really was ruled through a joint venture if you want between the royal family and the hard-line religious establishment and it was an ultra-conservative establishment you know controlled education controlled the public narrative that was until the rise of muhammad bin salman the young crown prince stripped the clerics of their power increased women's rights including giving them the right to drive and all in a radically short period of time if you look at it in a historical context of what societies had to go through to neuter their conservative right-wing religious class that usually only

happened with civil wars this has all happened without a single cleric being you know killed or no violence on the streets and i think that is virtually miraculous really [Music] so who is the man behind these changes mbs is a millennial who enjoys flaunting his wealth he splashed out over 200 million pounds on a french chateau the economist was given a rare chance to sit down with him in 2016 and found a prince ready for power there wasn't a single question that he shied away from um his responses were imaginative and detailed and he was

forthcoming and i think what came across perhaps most stridently was a sense of conviction he really believed in his ability to change the kingdom despite his confidence few could have predicted mbs's rise in saudi arabia's ruling dynasty the house of saud power usually passes sideways from brother to brother mbs's father salman had several older brothers ahead of him in line for succession but when two died he was able to take the throne opening up the way for mbs to succeed him although he still had several older half-brothers ahead of him in line for the throne

it wasn't clear that the line of succession was going to pass from one generation to the next and if you were going to move to the next generation there were many princes who were far better known mahogan salman was an unknown quantity but his father salman had a soft spot for him so when he became king in 2015 he increased mbs's portfolio these are just some of the titles he was given then in 2017 according to insider reports mbs forced his cousin to step aside as crown prince there was seems to have been something of

a standoff muhammad bin knife and his guards were disarmed mohammed bin laden was told that your time is up the council of allegiance has decided that you are no longer the crown prince and i'm going to fill your shoes after this mbs wasted no time in cementing his power it's a shakeup sending shockwaves across the kingdom and the world saudi arabia detaining top officials in a sweeping corruption probe he invited the wealthiest men in the kingdom along with the world's business elite to a conference on the future of the saudi economy a self-styled davos in

the desert and a short time later he used the opportunity to hold many of them in a luxury hotel he rounded up the leading princes and the richest businessmen interrogated them got them to reveal their banking details thereafter it was very clear that the real only ruler in the kingdom was now mohammed bin salman since then his aggression and repressive behavior have escalated he has consolidated power around his own court human rights groups estimate thousands have been detained and in march this year alone 81 were executed the government has maintained an extremely tight control of

society and i think that is a price the kingdom has had to pay for social peace as it transitions through this wrenching process some are much more skeptical khalid al jabri says he knows first hand how brutal the regime can be when when all you have is a hammer everything becomes a or everybody becomes a nail that's exactly what mbs is doing and his list of victims will keep expanding uh inside and outside saudi arabia unless somebody decides to put a check on him khalid lives in america but his roots are in saudi arabia i

come from a big family uh in terms of western standards i'm the eldest six boys and and two girls including amaransara they were funny smart it's very very ambitious in 2017 omar and sarah were banned from leaving the kingdom three years later they were seized by the authorities there were 20 unmarked civilian cars that showed up with 50 officers in plain clothes that went into the house and basically took umransara khalid's father was an adviser to the former crown prince mohammed bin nayef thinks his siblings travel ban has been used by mbs to try to

pressure his dad to return to the kingdom and he has seen messages from mbs to his father which he believes support this what's so unique about our case is mohammed bin salman can deflect responsibility on on rogue asians or that he doesn't know about it it's a complicated story khalid's dad is also accused of stealing billions of dollars from the saudi government which he denies meanwhile khalid worries about his own security i think like my father i made peace with the fact that one day i will probably be harmed and who can blame him mbs

has famously been linked to the murder of outspoken former royal court insider and journalist jamal khashoggi who was dismembered with a bone soul in the saudi consulate in istanbul nicholas knew him personally we were due to meet actually in istanbul uh the weekend that he he disappeared i think hamilton saw man he wanted to send a message that this is what happens when you question my authority [Music] mbs has said he takes responsibility for the murder but denies ordering it for a time it looked like the killing could jeopardize the kingdom's relationship with one of

its closest allies america we were going to in fact make them pay the price and make them in fact the pariah that they are saudi arabia has long been a strategic ally in the middle east successive presidents have happily sold arms to saudi leaders we really have a great friendship a great relationship crown prince thank you very much thank you for being here it's also home to the world's largest accessible oil reserves and thanks to the energy crisis caused by the war in ukraine president biden's threats now look empty the message from ukraine has been

that the global economy still depends on oil from the gulf it was also significant that it wasn't just uh biden who came to saudi arabia it was also the most powerful leaders in the arab world it was almost as if mohammed bin salman was sending the message i'm your address in the middle east if you want to have a relationship with the middle east if you want to keep russia and china away from dominating the region deal with me so where might change come from let's start in the kingdom itself there may be little overt

opposition but some including religious hardliners are unhappy with his reforms mohammed bin salman really is ruling by fear i saw it on my recent visits more than i've ever seen it before it does beg the question as it has for other uh totalitarian leaders in the middle east how long can you continue to rule by fear and by force and at what point could that be a breaking point another weak point is the economy since taking power he has dedicated himself to diversifying the kingdom away from oil with everything from tourism to flashy eco cities

like neon you see ancient lands we see the world tomorrow this is neon but despite the glossy pr promises of new cities in the sand unemployment is still in double figures while many of the oil-related subsidies saudis have traditionally enjoyed are gone he hasn't really had much success in diversifying revenues the kingdom is still heavily dependent on oil and looks as if it will be for the foreseeable future so what what does that mean if if if he can't deliver and if you see a rise in economic frustration there's a huge question mark as to

whether that could also translate into political frustration so what about threats beyond the kingdom the most immediate is right on his doorstep in yemen as defence minister back in 2015 one of the first things mbs did was intervene in a bloody war to crush houthi rebels who were being supported by the kingdom's arch rival iran but seven years on the houthis have forced the better-armed saudis into a ceasefire which still leaves the kingdom looking exposed well the kingdom is very vulnerable houthis have been succeeding in getting through although saudi air defense have improved their game

considerably over the past couple of years but still the kingdom is a very wide geographic space and that makes it particularly vulnerable to drones and other um projectiles that come either from iran or from iran's proxies but perhaps the greatest threat to the crown prince might be mbs himself he's shown himself to be ego driven aggressive and impulsive and perhaps it's only so long before he makes a fatal misjudgment is it his own recklessness is it his own brutality is it his own uh desire to be the only voice in the kingdom that could ultimately

prove his undoing for sound policy you need to have people who can say no and at the moment in saudi arabia everyone is too scared to say anything but yes we put the allegations in this film to the royal court in saudi arabia it declined to comment but in response to a related piece about mbs in the economist it denied all allegations against the crown prince insisting they are fabricated and without foundation it continued the kingdom is unfortunately used to false accusations made against its leadership usually based on politically or other motivated malicious sources my

name is nicholas pelham i'm the middle east correspondent for the economist if you'd like to find out more about mohammed bin salman please click on the link below thank you and don't forget to subscribe