Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show
Speaker 1: where we explored the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. Welcome to this week's episode, where we
Speaker 1: will discuss Saudi Arabia, one of the most complicated and
Speaker 1: most interesting places in the entire world, also one of
Speaker 1: the most opaque. Saudi Arabia's history is little understood outside
Speaker 1: of the kingdom, but it's hugely important for understanding what's
Speaker 1: going on there right now. Saudi Arabia looms very, very
Speaker 1: large in US consciousness. It started in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: when oil was everybody's focus. It rose during the first
Speaker 1: Goal four and then it peaked in the years immediately
Speaker 1: after September eleventh. Since then, Saudi Arabia has never been
Speaker 1: entirely out of the news, but it has become an
Speaker 1: especially intense focus of scrutiny and interest during the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: And that's as of the close relationship between the new
Speaker 1: dominant Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman or MBS as he's
Speaker 1: called for short, and the Trump administration. You'll remember that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump made a well publicized to visit the Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia in the spring of twenty seventeen that was the
Speaker 1: one with a eerie, creepy crystal ball, and he showed
Speaker 1: his great closeness to the government. Then this week, Trump
Speaker 1: authorized a small troop deployment to the country after airstrikes
Speaker 1: hit a major oil processing plant there. Saudi Arabia says
Speaker 1: that Iran was behind the attack, a charge that Iran denies. Meanwhile, domestically,
Speaker 1: an internal revolution of sorts, a quiet revolution, if you will,
Speaker 1: has been happening inside of the Saudi Arabia. This is
Speaker 1: a transformation both in social morays, with women suddenly able
Speaker 1: to drive, and simultaneously in political power, with a traditional
Speaker 1: Saudi royal elite family gradually giving way to a single
Speaker 1: overarching figure. MBS himself to discuss the complex personality Bhammed
Speaker 1: bin Salman, the history of US Saudi relations and the
Speaker 1: revolutionary developments going on right now in Saudi Arabia. I
Speaker 1: am thrilled to have with me here in the studio
Speaker 1: Bernard Heckel, Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.
Speaker 1: He says that to truly understand Saudi Arabia, you actually
Speaker 1: have to start by considering the country's climate. It is
Speaker 1: absolutely a very one of the driest places in the
Speaker 1: world and in fact, one of the harshest ecologies in
Speaker 1: the world. And I think one way to understand Saudi
Speaker 1: culture is that historically it was an adaptation to that ecology.
Speaker 1: Fascinating to tell me about about that adaptation and how
Speaker 1: it connects to how Saudi Arabia was governed for really
Speaker 1: the last couple of hundred years around since around the
Speaker 1: time of the American Revolution, right, So, because it was
Speaker 1: a very harsh ecology, you had, the principal form of
Speaker 1: social organization was tribal, and tribes are organized around you know,
Speaker 1: an eponym, a grandfather, and often are in conflict with
Speaker 1: one another over material resources. So it happened and means
Speaker 1: we are the tribe of so and so that's right,
Speaker 1: We're descendants of of you know, Muhammad been someone and
Speaker 1: and typically a tribe is also named after an ancestor um.
Speaker 1: So these tribes were often feuding over resources. And the
Speaker 1: Wahabis arose in a world in which you had a
Speaker 1: lot of violence of that kind. And it was a
Speaker 1: religious revivalist movement that basically tried to bring order, instability,
Speaker 1: and create a state to control and tamp down the
Speaker 1: nomadic the violent impulse of the nomads. So around two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years ago, in this environment of nomadism,
Speaker 1: with no central state, this religious revival movement, Wahabism comes
Speaker 1: into existence. Right, named for even Ablwahab himself. It's his name,
Speaker 1: that's right, It's that's right. It's named after a religious
Speaker 1: reformer who was a kind of you can think of
Speaker 1: him as a Calvin if you like, or a Luther
Speaker 1: of his day, who basically said, you know that true
Speaker 1: Islam is not practiced. People have deviated from the belief
Speaker 1: in the One True God, and in the name of
Speaker 1: God's oneness, the doctrine of God's oneness, I'm going to
Speaker 1: impose the true faith on everyone, and I'll use the
Speaker 1: sword if necessary to do so. So how did this
Speaker 1: religious reform movement marry itself into a political state. So
Speaker 1: the religious reformer himself made a pact with a local
Speaker 1: leader of a town and essentially said, you know, if
Speaker 1: you mobilize your resources in the name of this religious ideology,
Speaker 1: I will give you legitimacy. And then they started preaching
Speaker 1: and fighting and soon began to acquire other territory in
Speaker 1: bringing other territory under their under their power until around
Speaker 1: eighteen o five when they captured Mecca and Medina, and
Speaker 1: much of modern day Arabia came under their influence. And
Speaker 1: the name of the man with whom Ibanabluwahab made this
Speaker 1: deal was Muhammad Ibansoud. And so there is the earth
Speaker 1: of the name Saudi Arabia. It's a guy, it is
Speaker 1: Saud is a guy. I often say to people. There
Speaker 1: are not many countries in the world that are named
Speaker 1: the Arabia of somebody. In particular, Saudi Arabia means the
Speaker 1: Arabia that belongs to the family of Saud. That's right,
Speaker 1: and in fact the country owes its existence to their
Speaker 1: religio military efforts to unite this entire territory. So the
Speaker 1: birth of Saudi Arabia happens again right around the time
Speaker 1: of the American Revolution, and it grows out of this
Speaker 1: close alliance between the religious reformer and Wahabism and the
Speaker 1: Saudi family and the government that grows out of that.
Speaker 1: So the modern Saudi states, in their various iterations for
Speaker 1: the last two hundred years, are all reflections of that
Speaker 1: unique marriage. And in fact, you know, that's why what's
Speaker 1: happening today is somewhat remarkable because we see that alliance
Speaker 1: between a religious movement and a political family, a dynasty
Speaker 1: coming somewhat apart. So this at least being reconfigured. How
Speaker 1: has the relationship between the religious dynasty, because it's been
Speaker 1: a couple hundred years and the political dynasty traditionally operated
Speaker 1: until this most recent generation, right, So this Saudi history
Speaker 1: in the Saudist states have had three different iterations. So
Speaker 1: you had the first Saudi State, which was founded on
Speaker 1: this pact in seventeen forty four and lasted until eighteen
Speaker 1: eighteen when it was crushed by the Ottomans. Then there
Speaker 1: was a second Saudi State, which was less powerful, less
Speaker 1: influential in the nineteenth century, didn't didn't go very far.
Speaker 1: And then we are now in the third Saudi State.
Speaker 1: And this third Saudis state was initiated by one of
Speaker 1: the descendants of the founder, Muhammad Eben Sud. He's known
Speaker 1: as out King Ablaziz otherwise known as Eben Saud as well,
Speaker 1: and he began the unification with through the use of
Speaker 1: this religious ideology and violence of the modern Saudi State,
Speaker 1: which was ultimately declared a kingdom in nineteen thirty two
Speaker 1: and he became a king. But he allied with this family,
Speaker 1: this religious family of the reformer traditional alliance, and he
Speaker 1: went back that's right, he went back to it. He
Speaker 1: mobilized a religious ideology and forces to bring other territories
Speaker 1: under his control. Just started around nineteen o two. By
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two we have the creation of modern Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: And amazingly, he did not do this on the suspicion
Speaker 1: that there was oil wealth waiting to be found. Yeah,
Speaker 1: none at all. And then as though by direct divine providence,
Speaker 1: right shortly after the state was consolidated, boom, they find oil.
Speaker 1: That's right. Lo and behold, you know, the largest oil
Speaker 1: fields in the world are in Saudi Arabia. One of them,
Speaker 1: for instance, called Kawar is the size of Delaware oil
Speaker 1: field is the size of that. And it has been
Speaker 1: pumping you know, close to five million barrels for the
Speaker 1: last fifty some years. With I mean no end in
Speaker 1: immediate site. Eventually it will end, yes, and that's part
Speaker 1: of what we'll talk about. Yes, but you know this
Speaker 1: is you know, the Saudi Arabia has about twenty three
Speaker 1: percent of the world's proven oil reserves, and it is
Speaker 1: the cheapest number, and it's the cheapest oil to produce
Speaker 1: in the world as well. I mean, you know, it
Speaker 1: just literally almost comes out of the ground with minimal effort, right,
Speaker 1: with minimal effort. So this extraordinary thing happens in which
Speaker 1: what was otherwise a kind of minor kingdom in an
Speaker 1: area that most countries had never bothered with, yes, suddenly
Speaker 1: became one of the most valuable pieces of real estate
Speaker 1: in the world because it's sitting on these oil resources. Yes.
Speaker 1: I would have imagined that when that happened, the ruler
Speaker 1: would have tacked away from his alliance with the religious
Speaker 1: authorities and just gone in on his own. But that
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Yeah, why why did it happen? Well, I
Speaker 1: mean to understand King Ablasis even so, you have to
Speaker 1: understand that the man, I think had it several qualities,
Speaker 1: the most important of which is that he knew the
Speaker 1: limits of his own power, and he knew that his
Speaker 1: population was deeply conservative, in fact, religiously quite reactionary, and
Speaker 1: that he needed religion in order to control his population.
Speaker 1: There's an apocryphal saying. I think it's apocryphal, but it's
Speaker 1: perfectly in keeping with his temperament and his character, which
Speaker 1: says that religion he is meant to have said, religion
Speaker 1: is like a falcon. The one who controls it hunts
Speaker 1: with it. So he understood the power of religion, you know,
Speaker 1: very very well. So King Ablasis creates this dynasty, and
Speaker 1: then he does that kind of remarkable thing. He had
Speaker 1: an enormous number of sons, right, Yes, not quite a hundred,
Speaker 1: but in that no, he had about thirty four thirty
Speaker 1: five sons and an equal number of daughters. And he
Speaker 1: set things up so that the inheritance of his royal
Speaker 1: throne would not just go from father to son, father
Speaker 1: to son, father to son, as many sort of Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones ish regimes, yes, do it, but rather in
Speaker 1: a kind of somewhat unusual model where it went to
Speaker 1: his one of his older sons, right, and then it
Speaker 1: was supposed to go down through the brothers. That's right.
Speaker 1: Why why I've always been curious about this. It's such
Speaker 1: an unusual way of doing things, and it's been so
Speaker 1: crucial to the history of Saudi Arabia. How did they
Speaker 1: come up with this mechanism of emsignating designating errors? I
Speaker 1: mean I think. I think that first of all, it's
Speaker 1: not a it's not a super formalized system, Okay, so
Speaker 1: it can be changed, and it is being changed now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're coming to the revolution that any moment now, right.
Speaker 1: So the first thing to understand also is that that
Speaker 1: the creation of Saudi Arabia was not just the work
Speaker 1: of King Ablasis. It was also the creation of some
Speaker 1: of his sons who were very close an age to him.
Speaker 1: I mean, many of them had fought these battles themselves
Speaker 1: with him because they were with him pretty young, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so so the idea that somehow you could side
Speaker 1: line these people who were the founding fathers of the
Speaker 1: kingdom was deemed untenable. So it was determined that the
Speaker 1: most competent, the most eligible of the sons would become
Speaker 1: the king by consensus and acclamation of the other brothers,
Speaker 1: and the government was divvied up between the brothers. So
Speaker 1: you had different ministries under the control of different brothers,
Speaker 1: each one of which became sort of almost like a
Speaker 1: semi autonomous statelet if you like, within the state. So
Speaker 1: one guy controlled the Ministry of the Interior, another person
Speaker 1: was the governor of a large province. A third was
Speaker 1: in charge of the foreign ministry and so on, though
Speaker 1: they like to use a non brother for the ministry
Speaker 1: of oil. Right, that's right for too important, that's right
Speaker 1: for the kind of crown jewels of the system. And
Speaker 1: there are really two. One is the oil company Saudi Aramco,
Speaker 1: that's always been run by a technocrat, and princes were
Speaker 1: kept away in order not to mess it up. And
Speaker 1: the other is the central bank, what is called the
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, that's always been run also by
Speaker 1: a technocrat. So they divided up power between themselves. You know,
Speaker 1: it became a gerontocracy. It became a country that was
Speaker 1: increasingly ruled by very old people because the brothers got older.
Speaker 1: And that's right. The brothers got older and older, and
Speaker 1: they stayed on, you know, in positions of power, some
Speaker 1: of them for forty fifty years as ministers different and
Speaker 1: different agencies of the government. And as a result you
Speaker 1: had the consequences of that politically, that people as they
Speaker 1: got older didn't want to change things. It's a place
Speaker 1: that's extremely conservative to begin with. So to understand MBS
Speaker 1: also you have to understand that that he comes out
Speaker 1: of a system that was essentially run by extremely old
Speaker 1: people who were unwilling to change how the country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how the country was run. So as the brothers get
Speaker 1: as the even of the youngest of the brothers gets
Speaker 1: older and older, any observer inside and outside can tell
Speaker 1: that at some point they're gonna have to switch away
Speaker 1: from the brothers. That's now set the stage for the
Speaker 1: current day and the rise of the crown Prince Mohammed
Speaker 1: bin Salmon. Where does he stand first of all generationally
Speaker 1: compared to a Blasi's Ben Salwood? You know, I mean,
Speaker 1: he is the grandson of the founder King, but the
Speaker 1: grandfather died in nineteen fifty three and he's still in
Speaker 1: his early thirties today, and he was born around nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty I believe. But his father has still let us
Speaker 1: not forget the King of Saudi Arabia, King Salmon is
Speaker 1: the son. Yes, he's the son of the founder. So
Speaker 1: we're still technically speaking, yes, we're still on the sons.
Speaker 1: That's what the original founder. We're not quite done yet,
Speaker 1: that's right. And what happened is, as things do happen,
Speaker 1: people die, and so a lot of the sons have died,
Speaker 1: and many of the principal architects of the system have
Speaker 1: passed away. King Salmon is one of the last great
Speaker 1: sons and of the founder, and one of the great
Speaker 1: pillars of the of the system. He was, for instance,
Speaker 1: the governor of the of the largest province, the province
Speaker 1: of Riad, for you know, many decades. He was the
Speaker 1: enforcer of the family's discipline. Um. He was the keeper
Speaker 1: of the history of the family and of the kingdom.
Speaker 1: He's you know, he's a formidable person. The present king
Speaker 1: someone he decided that we're going to move away from
Speaker 1: this old system of brothers and consensus to one of primogenitor,
Speaker 1: where you know, his son will become although not he
Speaker 1: chose not to not to choose his eldest son. Why not?
Speaker 1: What was wrong with the eldest son. It's not clear.
Speaker 1: It's not clear why he chose U Mohammad bin Salman MBS.
Speaker 1: MBS is the son of the third wife, is the
Speaker 1: eldest of the of the children of the third wife
Speaker 1: of the king. And you know, there are rumors as
Speaker 1: to why. One is that he saw in him something
Speaker 1: that he didn't see in the other sons. You know,
Speaker 1: going back to a Saudi um saying again to do
Speaker 1: it again to another number two, yes, another, often saying
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia they say that the father is the
Speaker 1: falconer of his sons. In other words, the father knows
Speaker 1: which of his sons is the best hunting falcon, and
Speaker 1: so it seems that he has chosen emy. Clearly, he
Speaker 1: has chosen MBS as the best of the falcons. I
Speaker 1: don't think I should tell my kids that I am
Speaker 1: your falconer. I don't know. I don't know how well
Speaker 1: that would that would go over, but it makes sense. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: So the stage is now set. King Salman says, we're
Speaker 1: changing the order. Instead of going to one of my brothers,
Speaker 1: and there are a handful of them left, I am
Speaker 1: going to designate my son, Mahmad bin Saman MBS as
Speaker 1: the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. He is going to
Speaker 1: get the torne. He's going to be the first king
Speaker 1: of Saudi Arabia who was not either of modern Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 1: who's not either King Abdlasi's himself or one of his sons. Correct.
Speaker 1: And that leads to something of a sense of dissatisfaction
Speaker 1: among the other brothers because he's breaking the chain of
Speaker 1: succession is breaking all the rules, and in response, MBS
Speaker 1: has to take decisive action involving the Ritz Carlton Hotel.
Speaker 1: So yes, tell us from this perspective, So what was
Speaker 1: going on? So I think you know, to understand the Ritz,
Speaker 1: you have to understand also that this is an absolutist
Speaker 1: monarchy and absolute monarchy. So the king has final say
Speaker 1: in all matters. And this king is king. While all
Speaker 1: the key brothers who would have in the past stood
Speaker 1: in his way tried, you know, whose views mattered are
Speaker 1: no longer around, right, who were supposed to but they
Speaker 1: were also so the older brothers dead, the older most
Speaker 1: senior ones are gone, so he had room for maneuver.
Speaker 1: He had much more room for maneuver. He's an absolute monarch,
Speaker 1: and everyone in Saudi Arabia ultimately looks to the king.
Speaker 1: So the king's will, just like in the case of
Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth is final and we'll determine the nature
Speaker 1: of succession. Now, what MBS does is he also sees
Speaker 1: a system that is incredibly corrupt, in which many princes
Speaker 1: but also businessmen and bureaucrats and administrators are involved in
Speaker 1: all kinds of schemes where you know, the government gets
Speaker 1: overcharged on contracts, all kinds of kickbacks take place, and
Speaker 1: NBS wants to show that there's a new sheriff in
Speaker 1: town and that that old system is no longer going
Speaker 1: to function, and you know, feeding at the trough, you know,
Speaker 1: where the government is paying ten to twenty percent extra
Speaker 1: just because of this corruption on all its contracts is
Speaker 1: going to stop. So he has this arrest of hundreds
Speaker 1: of people, many of them princes. So these are his cousins, cousins, uncles,
Speaker 1: and he you know, he has them, you know, put
Speaker 1: in as well as bureaucrats as well as businessmen. You know,
Speaker 1: all the entire kind of elite that managed the system
Speaker 1: gets put into the Ritz Carlton and here in the West,
Speaker 1: everyone saw this as a shakedown on for MBS to
Speaker 1: benefit personally from the money. When I asked around about like, well,
Speaker 1: is he trying to wrench it himself? And one Saudi said,
Speaker 1: but you know, he controls the river of money. I mean,
Speaker 1: he is in charge, you know, he is the state
Speaker 1: is the state, so he can take any money he
Speaker 1: wants from the state already, So it's not it's not.
Speaker 1: It was something else was. So I think it was
Speaker 1: two things. One was to destroy that older system of
Speaker 1: corruption and perhaps create a new one with him at
Speaker 1: the center and centralized, yeah, you know, or a much
Speaker 1: smaller one, um, but certainly kind of a change in
Speaker 1: hierarchy and power. And it was about getting some of
Speaker 1: that money back into the public treasury. And I think
Speaker 1: he managed to do some of that. If the money
Speaker 1: was in country, the money that was overseas was almost
Speaker 1: impossible to bring back, and according to reports, they weren't gentle,
Speaker 1: even with very senior members of the royal family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's possible. You know. Firstly, you have to remember that
Speaker 1: anything you remember, the royal family has never confronted a
Speaker 1: situation where someone says to them you can't have this,
Speaker 1: or you can't. You can't you know us, you can't
Speaker 1: leave your right, So I think so, I do think
Speaker 1: there was coercion that was used of different kinds. I
Speaker 1: have no proof that torture was used, but it wouldn't
Speaker 1: surprise me, right, and it's clear that it was very effective. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: as Mohammed bin Salman MBS consolidates power, he's also trying
Speaker 1: to change something about the authority of religion. At the
Speaker 1: same time, Yes, so we hear about women driving, which
Speaker 1: is something that the traditional religious scholars have been blocking
Speaker 1: for many, many years. How is he doing that and
Speaker 1: how real is that? You know? Sometimes critics say, well,
Speaker 1: Mohammad bin Salman needs to be liked abroad, he needs
Speaker 1: support from the Trump administration and or to consolidate power.
Speaker 1: So he's throwing in the West some bones by saying, oh,
Speaker 1: we'll liberalize for women, will let them drive. But there's
Speaker 1: still a guardianship system in the country where women in
Speaker 1: theory can't travel or you know, make important life decisions
Speaker 1: without the agreement of a male guardian. So it's all
Speaker 1: superficial talk. Talk about a what he's doing, and be
Speaker 1: how real it is. So I think again, to understand
Speaker 1: the changes that he's affecting, you have to understand the
Speaker 1: relationship that the Saudi state had with religion, and for
Speaker 1: that to understand that, you have to go back to
Speaker 1: the Cold War. So during the Cold War, the Saudis
Speaker 1: were under immediate threat from other ideologies, namely communist ideology, socialism,
Speaker 1: Arab nationalism from Egypt, from Syria, and so on, and
Speaker 1: coups were taking place where military officers were toppling dynastic
Speaker 1: monarchies in Libya and Iraq, almost anywhere and everywhere in
Speaker 1: the Middle East. It was a bad period for kings
Speaker 1: in the Middle that's right. And so the Americans who
Speaker 1: were at war with in a Cold War against the Communists,
Speaker 1: basically come to the Saudis in late nineteen fifties under
Speaker 1: Presdent Eisenhower and say to the Saudis, you know, why
Speaker 1: don't you mobilize Islam as a political ideology against the left.
Speaker 1: And initially the Saudis we're doing in God we trust by,
Speaker 1: don't you guys try the same, That's right. And the
Speaker 1: Saudis initially didn't have the wherewithal in the resources to
Speaker 1: do this. They would have liked to. But it's only
Speaker 1: in the sixties, when a lot of the Muslim brothers
Speaker 1: who are members of an Islamist organization are being persecuted
Speaker 1: and discriminated against in countries like Egyptirian Iraq end up
Speaker 1: seeking refuge in Arabia, that the Saudis have the manpower
Speaker 1: the human capital to start using Islam as a political
Speaker 1: ideology against their ideological opponents outside. The always used it internally,
Speaker 1: but they didn't have the manpower. They didn't have the educated,
Speaker 1: skillful peoples that moved through the arable world spreading their message,
Speaker 1: and it became, you know, absolutely central to how Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia defended itself, and in fact it got ramped up
Speaker 1: at the end of the nineteen seventies of the Irania Revolution,
Speaker 1: which was also an Islamic revolution and sought to undermine
Speaker 1: Saudi legitimacy. So the Saudi's turned up the volume on
Speaker 1: Islam as a political ideology and as patrons of this ideology.
Speaker 1: So this is a kind of a Cold War story.
Speaker 1: It's also a story of confronting Iran, and of course
Speaker 1: with the Cold War, the culmination of that alliance with
Speaker 1: the US using Islamis ideology was an Alfhanistan and that
Speaker 1: ended up producing al Qaida, which is an unintended consequence.
Speaker 1: So MBS against this background, MBS says, you know, this
Speaker 1: alliance with Islamists using Islam as you know, has brought
Speaker 1: us nothing but grief. It produced al Qaida. The Americans
Speaker 1: are not blaming us for it, when in fact we
Speaker 1: were allies with the Americans, and so I don't want
Speaker 1: to have anything to do with it. I want to
Speaker 1: just give up Islamism completely and moreover, it's creating a
Speaker 1: society here in Saudi Arabia where no foreigner wants to
Speaker 1: come and work here. And I want to be like Dubai.
Speaker 1: I want to be dynamic. I want to create a
Speaker 1: knoledge economy. I want you know, people to want to
Speaker 1: come here. And for that to happen, I need to
Speaker 1: socially liberalize. I need for women to be in the workplace.
Speaker 1: I need to perhaps allow for alcohol to be consumed,
Speaker 1: and I need a lot more kind of live and
Speaker 1: let live, which you know is impossible under the old dispensation.
Speaker 1: And so I'm breaking with that passed. So on that view,
Speaker 1: we don't even need to ask so much whether MBS
Speaker 1: is throwing a bone to the West. It's the opposite.
Speaker 1: It's that it's in MBS is actual interest to weaken
Speaker 1: religious authorities. So when he does something like allow women
Speaker 1: to drive, it's not necessarily he cares so much about women.
Speaker 1: Inherently is that he's trying to produce a more westernize
Speaker 1: is too strong a term, but a more liberalized society
Speaker 1: to help himself and to help his economy. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean not politically liberal at all, but you know, something
Speaker 1: not liberal in the sense of Leney to be vote
Speaker 1: that's not on the cards, No, I think something like
Speaker 1: I mean, what he wants is to replace Islam with
Speaker 1: nationalism and populism. He wants something similar to let's say
Speaker 1: Russia or China, you know, in terms of a political
Speaker 1: model where Saudi's care about being you know, Saudi's and
Speaker 1: don't care about Wahabism and don't want to spend money
Speaker 1: on building mosques overseas and that sort of thing. So
Speaker 1: he he's interested in changing the very kind of nature
Speaker 1: of society and the allegiances of people. So that's the
Speaker 1: attractive might be the wrong word, but that's the kind
Speaker 1: of defensible, reasonable, understandable, reformist face as it were, of MBS.
Speaker 1: And yet at the same time he's come to be
Speaker 1: seen internationally as being very brutal in the process of
Speaker 1: doing this. And a crucial event in this was the
Speaker 1: murderer of someone whom we both knew, a Jamaashoji, a
Speaker 1: Saudi himself from a prominent Saudi family. Super upsetting to
Speaker 1: many people who knew knew Jamaal Like yes, like like
Speaker 1: you and me talk a little bit about why that happened,
Speaker 1: and how we can try to make sense of it
Speaker 1: in light of the other objectives that Mohammed been Sama
Speaker 1: is pursuing. So I think, you know, Jamal represented in
Speaker 1: a way the old order, and Jamal himself, as you said,
Speaker 1: I knew him. I've invited him to Princeton and he's
Speaker 1: spoken there, and I've known him since the late nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: And but Jamal was seen as an Islamist by the regime,
Speaker 1: and he was seen as closer to Erduan in Turkey
Speaker 1: and to the Kataris, and that he wanted, unlike MBS,
Speaker 1: for that alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood to be maintained.
Speaker 1: That Saudi Arabia could not reform politically or socially without
Speaker 1: that alliance with the Islamists. It's a longer story for
Speaker 1: another conversation maybe we can have in the future. People,
Speaker 1: especially in the US, hear the word Islamist and think
Speaker 1: that somebody who is a jihadi or a radical, but
Speaker 1: that's yeah, no, often not the case. It was certainly
Speaker 1: not the case for yeah, Jamal. He's more of a
Speaker 1: trend of the last quarter century where many members of
Speaker 1: the Muslim Brotherhood came to embrace at least some of
Speaker 1: the goals of democracy, Yes, and wanted to democratize a
Speaker 1: place like Saudi Arabias and liked the aspiration. It hasn't
Speaker 1: worked out so well in Turkey, but the aspiration at
Speaker 1: least of a democratic regime that was still Islamic and
Speaker 1: its orientation. Yes, And you know, lots of people thought
Speaker 1: that's what should happen in Egypt after the Arab Spring.
Speaker 1: It didn't work out so well there either, But so
Speaker 1: it's just important to clarify that what might have looked
Speaker 1: like a threat to Mohammed bin Salman might not have
Speaker 1: been a threat when viewed from the standpoint say of democracy. Yes,
Speaker 1: absolutely correct. And Jamal I mean Jamal basically wanted Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia to become more democratic and that clashed with MBS's
Speaker 1: vision of the strong man who's going to use nationalism
Speaker 1: and populism and move away from Islamism. Then why to
Speaker 1: be blunt? Why murder him instead of just letting him
Speaker 1: become what he already was a vocal critic from the outside,
Speaker 1: essentially an exile. My sense is that he was seen
Speaker 1: as a real threat because he could mobilize all the
Speaker 1: dissidents around the world against Saudi Arabia. He was very
Speaker 1: effective at using social media. He had a platform in
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, and I suspect that people around MBS
Speaker 1: went to him and said, basically, this guy is, you know,
Speaker 1: a real menace, a real threat to the order that
Speaker 1: you're trying to establish, and we should get rid of him.
Speaker 1: The murder, in addition to being morally reprehensible, was a
Speaker 1: gross miscalculation. Yes, it backfired hugely with the international community,
Speaker 1: especially journalists and academics, the kind of people whom Jamal
Speaker 1: knew all over the world, really turning on MBS in
Speaker 1: a way that at an emotional level I experience as
Speaker 1: hard to get beyond myself. Yes, you know, I myself
Speaker 1: feel frustrated with him, angry at him because of because
Speaker 1: he killed my friend. You know, the people around him
Speaker 1: were so arrogant because of their success domestically at taming
Speaker 1: all dissidents in opposition that they felt that they can
Speaker 1: do this also overseas, and I think that people definitely
Speaker 1: in the Kingdom around MBS, and he himself feels that
Speaker 1: it was a mistake visa via the West. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure though, if you're looking at Saudi dissidents around the world.
Speaker 1: And if you can show that, you can get one
Speaker 1: of them in Turkey under the rule of Erduan, who
Speaker 1: is the personal friend of that dissident. If you can
Speaker 1: get to that guy, they can get to almost anyone.
Speaker 1: So as for the rest of the dissidents is we
Speaker 1: can get you no matter where you are, you can't
Speaker 1: run you. Yeah, it's a kind of putent like message
Speaker 1: right to dissidents, So you know they might not regret
Speaker 1: it in that regard, maybe not to blowback, yes, maybe
Speaker 1: not stay a little bit about MBS himself and you
Speaker 1: know him, Yes, As I work in Saudi Arabia, I
Speaker 1: knew a number of people who are around him, around MBS,
Speaker 1: and one of them once contacted me and said, you know,
Speaker 1: the Prince has seen a piece that you've written and
Speaker 1: would like to meet with you. This was a time
Speaker 1: when he was trying to cultivate Americans and American elites,
Speaker 1: and so I met with him, and you know, we
Speaker 1: chatted in Arabic. And my impression of him is that he,
Speaker 1: you know, he's very charismatic. He has facts and figures,
Speaker 1: you know, at his fingertips about all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: So there's kind of like a you know, a genius
Speaker 1: like quality in that he can give you, like rattle
Speaker 1: off numbers and data about almost anything to do with
Speaker 1: the kingdom. And then he also pays real close attention
Speaker 1: to what you're saying, so he gives you the feeling
Speaker 1: that you know, he really cares. So he's a politician's
Speaker 1: politician and a skilled one's a very skilled one comes
Speaker 1: across a very yeah, and he's you know, he's saying,
Speaker 1: impress the Trump administry. That's right. And he charmed also,
Speaker 1: you know, Michael Bloomberg and all kinds of people you
Speaker 1: know around around the country, Tom Friedman, you know, David Ignatius,
Speaker 1: all kinds of people were charmed by, many of whom
Speaker 1: are skeptical people in general. That's right. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think he had the advantage of the fact that
Speaker 1: he was so different from these older rulers of Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia who just seemed like, um, you know, clones of
Speaker 1: these old Soviets. You know, you remember in the old
Speaker 1: days with Andropoff and Bregnev and all these guys, you know,
Speaker 1: the Politburo who just seemed like dead men walking, you know,
Speaker 1: dead men walking. And he is just a breath of
Speaker 1: fresh air in the sense that he talks and wants
Speaker 1: to change and wants to liberalize and so on. So
Speaker 1: there's there's a kind of attractive quality to him because
Speaker 1: of that. But at the same time, there's a toughness
Speaker 1: to him, and I think that's actually probably why he
Speaker 1: was chosen by his dad. How do you, as someone
Speaker 1: who's an observer of the region, a scholar of the region,
Speaker 1: how do you internally balance and find your own ethical
Speaker 1: compass in dealing with somebody who is in many ways dynamic, extraordinary,
Speaker 1: a genuine reformer and also capable of you know, dropping
Speaker 1: a diamond killing somebody. So you know, he he's an
Speaker 1: object of researcher for me. I mean it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I go to the Middle East, and I go to
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, and I talk to people who hate him
Speaker 1: inside the royal family, dissidents, you know, EXTI hottest journalist, liberals, women,
Speaker 1: And he's just one of the many people that I
Speaker 1: engage with to learn as much as I can about
Speaker 1: the country. And so I think of my engagement with
Speaker 1: him inasmuch as it will continue as just part of research.
Speaker 1: You know, now, if he asks me, you know, what
Speaker 1: do I think about x or Y. I just tell
Speaker 1: him what I think, you know, So I haven't sort
Speaker 1: of held back on telling him that, you know, killing
Speaker 1: Jamal is a terrible thing and a crime, and someone
Speaker 1: should pay for it. I haven't stopped from telling him that,
Speaker 1: you know, if he tries to build an alliance with
Speaker 1: the Chinese or the Russians and move away from the West,
Speaker 1: that that would be a terrible strategic error for the
Speaker 1: for his country. I tell him that, you know, the
Speaker 1: dissidents should be released, all dissidents, not just the women,
Speaker 1: because you know, writing in social media criticism is not
Speaker 1: criminal and will never be understood as criminal in the West.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I've had this experience myself, so I'm
Speaker 1: not asking you something that I wouldn't I haven't asked
Speaker 1: myself a thousand times as well. But what do you
Speaker 1: say when people tell you, Look, that's all well and
Speaker 1: good to think of someone as an object of research,
Speaker 1: But if you're in conversation, you know, if you're having
Speaker 1: a late night text exchange with the Crown Prince of
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, you know you're helping him in some way.
Speaker 1: You're engaged with power. And if you're giving him a
Speaker 1: good advice. That's good advice that he'll use to achieve
Speaker 1: his ends, whatever they are. And so that that line drawing,
Speaker 1: which is very hard for any any engaged scholar to do,
Speaker 1: is is too hard to defend against and better to
Speaker 1: better to keep a distance. What do you what do
Speaker 1: you say when people people say that too? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that as long as I feel that I
Speaker 1: haven't done something wrong or helped him do something wrong,
Speaker 1: which I haven't done, yeah, I don't feel compromised. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean if he asked me to do something, that's
Speaker 1: a different that's a different matter. I mean I should
Speaker 1: say for myself, I have felt compromised. You know, leave
Speaker 1: aside Muhammed bin Sama. You know, I worked with the
Speaker 1: US government in Iraq working on the constitutional process there,
Speaker 1: and you know I had then and still have lots
Speaker 1: of criticisms of the way the United States government operated.
Speaker 1: But I was, you know, I was fully part of
Speaker 1: a US occupation regime and the the ethical errors and
Speaker 1: the crimes that that you know, government backed, you know
Speaker 1: that the United States committed there. I have to bear
Speaker 1: some ethical obligation and responsibility for that. But that's a
Speaker 1: little different because that's my own country and you're you're
Speaker 1: talking also you accept I mean you also agreed to
Speaker 1: you know, formal capacity to take a job, right, So
Speaker 1: I'm not taking really different Yeah, I'm not taking job.
Speaker 1: I mean for me, it's a way of understanding the
Speaker 1: system so much more in the country, so much better. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Just to close, where's it all going? You know, revolutions
Speaker 1: look impressive when they're going well. So this revolution seems
Speaker 1: to be succeeding. What are the risks and what are
Speaker 1: your predictions about whether it will ultimately succeed? Right, So
Speaker 1: for me, the idea of success here is whether Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia will be able to transition to an economy that
Speaker 1: is prosperous and that delivers for its people beyond the
Speaker 1: age of oil. That is a very difficult thing to
Speaker 1: do because essentially what you have in Saudi Arabia is
Speaker 1: a nanny state that uses the oil revenues and then
Speaker 1: redistributes it to the population. And that's an unsustainable model,
Speaker 1: and it also creates certain pathologies in terms of people
Speaker 1: expecting jobs from the government, not wanting to work in
Speaker 1: the private sector, and so on. So I think the
Speaker 1: economic challenge is the most serious one, and I'm doubtful
Speaker 1: as to whether that's possible insider Arabia or anywhere else,
Speaker 1: given the volume of money that gets generated and gets redistributed.
Speaker 1: I should add one last thing, which is that if
Speaker 1: he doesn't deliver, if MBS doesn't deliver on his promises
Speaker 1: of economic reform and eventually of political reform, there will
Speaker 1: be social mobilization. The people will mobilize in the streets
Speaker 1: like they have in Egypt and in other places, and
Speaker 1: will make demands for more, greater accountability, greater participation in
Speaker 1: the government. Well, when that starts to happen, we'll have
Speaker 1: you back and we'll talk about it. Bernie, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for a fascinating, fascinating conversation. I look forward
Speaker 1: to talking more with you about these things, and I
Speaker 1: hope you'll come back and talk to us on de
Speaker 1: background again. Thank you. What does it mean for the
Speaker 1: future of US Saudi relations that the United States has
Speaker 1: deployed troops to Saudi Arabia for the first time in years.
Speaker 1: Does that decision increase the chances of our broader war
Speaker 1: in the Middle East? Well, one thing is for certain,
Speaker 1: US Saudi relations close for more than half a century
Speaker 1: are getting closer by the day. Donald Trump sees Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia as the lynchpin in a broader regional alliance against Iran.
Speaker 1: Israel agrees with that position, and Donald Trump has worked
Speaker 1: hard to try to bring the Saudias and the Israelis
Speaker 1: closer together again on the access of being against Iran.
Speaker 1: Saudi oil remains crucial to the economy of Europe and therefore,
Speaker 1: by extension, to the broader oil markets. Even as the
Speaker 1: amount of oil the US produces has gone up, and
Speaker 1: as long as the world remains dependent on oil, Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia is going to remain a crucial strategic player. That
Speaker 1: means the US Saudi relationship is likely to stay close
Speaker 1: even if someone else replaces Donald Trump as President of
Speaker 1: the United States. Over time, if Saudi Arabia actually reforms
Speaker 1: under Muhammad bin Salman, that is likely to bring the
Speaker 1: Saudis and the Americans closer still together. Of course, closeness
Speaker 1: between countries like the US and Saudi Araba is not
Speaker 1: necessarily the same thing as the United States going to
Speaker 1: war on behalf of the Saudi Right now, we know
Speaker 1: the Saudis don't want warorth Iran. The Israelis don't want
Speaker 1: warworthy Iran, and Donald Trump doesn't want war worth Iran.
Speaker 1: So for the moment, expect the relationship between the Saudist,
Speaker 1: the Israelis, and the Americans to get deeper. But watch
Speaker 1: closely to see if Saudi Arabia is able to make
Speaker 1: the internal reforms that will strengthen its ties to United States.
Speaker 1: Now for our very remarkable sound of the week, the
Speaker 1: actions of the Trump presidency revealed dishonorable fact of the
Speaker 1: President's betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our
Speaker 1: national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections. Therefore,
Speaker 1: today I'm announcing the House of Represents moving forward with
Speaker 1: an official impeachment inquiry. That, of course, was how Speaker
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday announcing that an impeachment inquiry against
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump is going to go forward. There's no
Speaker 1: way to avoid the sense that we are at a
Speaker 1: historic moment in the history of the United States. It's
Speaker 1: not that we haven't had impeachment inquiries before. Andrew Johnson
Speaker 1: was impeached but ultimately not convicted by the Senate. The
Speaker 1: same was true for Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon never got
Speaker 1: to the point of being impeached because he quit. But
Speaker 1: that is a tiny number of instances where the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives has come to the point where it is
Speaker 1: preparing to issue articles of impeachment against a sitting president.
Speaker 1: What's most remarkable about this instance and what differentiates it
Speaker 1: from the previous three examples, is at this time it's
Speaker 1: all about interactions between the president of the United States
Speaker 1: and foreign powers. That's how it started with the Muller investigation.
Speaker 1: But it seemed when that investigation came to an end
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump had somehow dodged the bullet that he
Speaker 1: had managed to emphasize the part of the Muller report
Speaker 1: that said there was not sufficient evidence of collusion in
Speaker 1: the twenty sixteen campaign between him and the Russians, and
Speaker 1: to de emphasize the parts of the report that emphasized
Speaker 1: obstruction of justice. What's changed is the revelation that a
Speaker 1: phone conversation occurred between Trump and Voladimir Zelenko, the president
Speaker 1: of Ukraine, in which Trump actively requested, as a favor
Speaker 1: Trump's word, for the President of Ukraine to commence an
Speaker 1: investigation of Joe Biden, who, not by coincidence, is Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's leading opponent going into the twenty twenty campaign. What
Speaker 1: would it mean in historical terms for the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives to impeach a president for effectively asking the assistance
Speaker 1: of a foreign power to subvert our democratic elections. The
Speaker 1: answer is that, if proven, such allegations amount to a
Speaker 1: serious attempt to undercut the independence and sovereignty of the
Speaker 1: United States as a republic of its own. To be
Speaker 1: very clear, we are not talking here merely about an
Speaker 1: attempt within the United States to distort electoral outcomes. We're
Speaker 1: not talking about breaking into the Democratic National Committee's headquarters
Speaker 1: the way Richard Nixon had the Watergate burglers do. No,
Speaker 1: we are talking about calling on an outside power to
Speaker 1: take some role in attempting to effect the outcome of
Speaker 1: the US election. Remarkably and astonishingly, the current allegation is
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump in fact attempted to do using Ukraine
Speaker 1: what there was not evidence that he did with Russia, namely,
Speaker 1: to collude with them in a process design to effect
Speaker 1: the outcome of a US election. And this time we're
Speaker 1: finding out about it before the elections even taken place.
Speaker 1: Now there's a lot more to find out about the details,
Speaker 1: and they're sure to be denials by Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: by Republicans. There's no guarantee that Trump will be impeached,
Speaker 1: and there's no guarantee that if he is impeached, he
Speaker 1: will be removed by the Senate. Indeed, that seems like
Speaker 1: it would be a very tough road to travel. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: the mere fact of the allegations, coupled with the opening
Speaker 1: of the impeachment inquiry, signals that we are at a remarkable, unusual,
Speaker 1: indeed astounding moment in US history. If you ask me,
Speaker 1: what would the founding fathers have said? I think they
Speaker 1: would have looked at us and said, we warned you
Speaker 1: this could happen. We gave you an impeachment process in
Speaker 1: order to deal with it. The future of the Republic
Speaker 1: is in your hands, not ours. If we mess it up,
Speaker 1: we won't be able to blame people who lived two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years ago. It'll be on us. Deep
Speaker 1: background is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer
Speaker 1: is Lydia Gene Coott, with engineering by Jason Gambrell and
Speaker 1: Jason Rostkowski. Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon. Our theme music
Speaker 1: is composed by Luis GERA special thanks to the Pushkin Brass,
Speaker 1: Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg, and Mia Lobel. I'm Noah Feldman.
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Twitter at Noah R Feldman.
Speaker 1: This is deep background