Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman Is Prince of Mixed Messages - Bloomberg:
Is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a reformer or a reactionary? The answer, maddening to those who love him as much as to those who loathe him, is that Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler might just be both those things.
In a year when he was under especially close international scrutiny, thanks to the grotesque late-2018 murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the prince — arguably the Middle East’s most important figure — gave free rein to both sides of his public persona, presiding over both reform and repression. It did nothing to alter the impression of MBS, as he is commonly known, as a man who wants to have his cake as well as eat it.
The duality was on display in his interview with PBS’s “Frontline,” when he both acknowledged and averted responsibility for Khashoggi’s killing: It had happened “under my watch,” he allowed, but then sought to deflect blame by saying he couldn’t know what all 3 million government officials were doing at any given time. A secretive Saudi investigation, followed by opaque court proceedings, led to sentences being handed down this week — but nobody was persuaded that justice had been done. For the record, the United Nations rapporteur who investigated the murder said Prince Mohammed “has a responsibility in relationship to the killing” and the CIA believes he gave the order.
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Which prince?
Photographer: Ryad Kramdi/AFP
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Is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a reformer or a reactionary? The answer, maddening to those who love him as much as to those who loathe him, is that Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler might just be both those things.
In a year when he was under especially close international scrutiny, thanks to the grotesque late-2018 murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the prince — arguably the Middle East’s most important figure — gave free rein to both sides of his public persona, presiding over both reform and repression. It did nothing to alter the impression of MBS, as he is commonly known, as a man who wants to have his cake as well as eat it.
The duality was on display in his interview with PBS’s “Frontline,” when he both acknowledged and averted responsibility for Khashoggi’s killing: It had happened “under my watch,” he allowed, but then sought to deflect blame by saying he couldn’t know what all 3 million government officials were doing at any given time. A secretive Saudi investigation, followed by opaque court proceedings, led to sentences being handed down this week — but nobody was persuaded that justice had been done. For the record, the United Nations rapporteur who investigated the murder said Prince Mohammed “has a responsibility in relationship to the killing” and the CIA believes he gave the order.
There was an air of equivocation, too, in MBS’s program of social reforms, where two steps forward in some areas — such as the relaxation of guardianship laws for women and regulations requiring gender-specific entrances in restaurants — were accompanied by a step back in others. The arrest of intellectuals in late November echoed last year’s shocking detention of women’s rights activists, just weeks before the prince lifted a ban on women driving.
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