I cant stage a coup dtat against 14 million citizens.. She is married to her half-cousin, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, son and heir of King Salman . At the prison I asked many inmates how they could trade jihadism for these worldly things, which surely amounted to frippery compared with the chance to die in the path of God. Read: A brief drive in Saudi Arabia changed my life, Many of the crown princes most persistent critics approve of these changes, and wish only that they had come sooner. We were met by the director of state-security prisons, Muhammad bin Salman al-Sarrah, and what appeared to be a television crew of at least half a dozen men, each bearing a microphone or a camera. When Sultan* talks about Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, he becomes visibly nervous. The issue, he said, is not a lack of mercy. I told Hamdi that I had corresponded with his friend Lindh, who served 17 years in federal prison in the United States before his release in 2019. A brat perhaps, but Sultan adds that MBS always longed for power, that "he's always had the hunger for it". Nothing is stranger than normalcy where one least expects it. Why are you here?) did he discover that I was Americannot, as I think he suspected, Filipinoand apologize awkwardly and leave. Sultan isoriginally from Saudi Arabia, but is now living in exile in Australia. MBS is correct when he suggests that the Biden administrations posture toward him is basically recriminatory. As a spymaster and security official in the 2000s, MBN had led the countrys domestic war against alQaeda, and in the process had become well connected with counterparts in Washington and London. But within the kingdom, MBSs succession is understood as inevitable. The United States can, and should, make the case that Saudi Arabias security and development will demand different tools going forward. When someone hits you because he does not like what you are wearing, he said, that is not just a form of harassment. "I think what it says is that this is a man with immense ambition, a man to whom people rarely say no. God had struck down the civilization that once lived there, and the place was forever to remain a reminder of his wrath. Difficult questions caused the crown prince to move about jumpily, his voice vibrating at a higher frequency. He changed the law of succession to prevent the next king from naming his own children, or indeed anyone from his own branch of the family, as his crown prince. CNN Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is a "psychopath," who "poses a threat to his people, to the Americans and to the planet," a former top Saudi intelligence official who is. At A Glance, Master in Management Program: 42 Credit Hours Schedule: Wednesday to Saturday - Full Day (once a month) Duration: 18 Months Starts: September 2023 Location: a minimum of 13 months in Riyadh, and the remaining period will be presented in our campus in KAEC. During his tenure, he earned a reputation as an efficient, if harsh, administrator. Dubai grew at a similar pace in the 1990s and 2000s. As part of this, in March, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched a new strategy to restructure the kingdom's scholarship program for Saudi students studying abroad. Neom has no inherited infrastructure at all. How Will Jay Monahan of the PGA Tour and Yasir al-Rumayyan Work But he couldnt survive his own cousin.. Saudi Arabia is making historic strides in women's rights so why haven't we heard about it? The Khashoggi murder fixed a view of the crown prince as brutish, thin-skinned, and psychopathic. I asked MBS if he understood that to be the rule, and he said yes. Ali Shihabi, a Saudi financier and pro-MBS commentator, told me that the changes in Saudi Arabia could be compared to those in revolutionary France. They would not stop until they brought down the House of Saud, seized the countrys estimated 268 billion barrels of oil and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and established a terrorist state. Ostensibly, this was to protest Qatari support for radical Islamists groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian-born group that has called for an overthrow of Saudi Arabias House of Saud. Left: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is greeted by Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim Al Thani in Doha, Qatar, in 2021. . But the Hair group, doing business as a company called, simply, Power, was aggressively corporate and entrepreneurial. It was the only policy question that he refused to answer. America must now decide whether that vision is worth encouraging. Instead, he said without apparent irony, he prefers to watch series that help him escape the reality of his job, such as Game of Thrones. You want to explode the thinking we have in our brain. By contrast, MBS has a law degree from King Saud University and flaunts his knowledge and dominance over the clerics. "It's like that Australian fellow who claims he's King Charles' [love child] becoming king.". We didnt have time to read the Islamic books We didnt have time to do anything but work to improve ourselves. He was a specialist in Powers media department, and could now produce videos of passable quality. In Islamic law, the head of the Islamic establishment is wali al-amr, the ruler, MBS explained. 23965-2609, "In my conversation with him, he was very frustrated at the fact that people would not let him forget this. Another regional conflict turned sour in June 2017, when another Saudi- and UAE-led coalition cut off diplomatic relations with the Gulf nation of Qatar. Today, we are almost 17. He noted strong non-oil GDP growth, and reeled off statistics about foreign direct investment, Saudi overseas investment, and the share of world trade that passes through Saudi waters. The kings have historically stayed away from religion, Bernard Haykel, a scholar of Islamic law at Princeton and an acquaintance of MBSs, told me. Salman challenged the religious status quo in Saudi Arabia to some extent. But these signs are not meant to preserve the ruins. The rest of that transition need not be as ruthless as the beginning, but MBS shows no sign of letting up. He will also be the leader of one of Americas closest allies and the source of many of its headaches. I wanted to see how that alliance between monarch and sansculottes was working. Stop bombing civilians in Yemen. Then they got these jobs and were empowered to go and stop the cute girls, break into the parties no one wanted them at, and shut them down. MBS hits back at Biden after the President confronts Saudi prince - CNN It took me a minute to realize what had happened: The religious police have stood down, and the ordinary police have stood up in their place. Hamdi spent months in Guantnamo Bay before being transferred to the U.S.; he was released after his father, a prominent Saudi petrochemical executive, helped take Hamdis case to the Supreme Court, and won (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld). One day, back in Saudi Arabia,he was told that the work he was doing was unacceptable to the authorities. The Saudi clerical classs power grew, and their imprimatur mattered. But everything I see suggests that his ascent is certain, and that the search for alternatives is forlorn. In 2015, after his father seceded to the throne, Salman became the youngest person on record to be named Minister of Defense. MBSC Administration Careers We are seeking new talents that want to be part of this unique Entrepreneurial journey. MBN survived al-Qaeda, al-Jabris son Khalid told me. He was not lying. From Saudi Life to intramural sports including Basketball and Football, theres something for everyone here. I asked if he had anyone in mind for the job. This article appears in the April 2022 print edition with the headline Absolute Power., Saudi Arabias crown prince, an inmate advocates for his own death, finding empathy for COVID skeptics, and new fiction by Paul Yoon. The latter . But these reforms have been occurring hand-in-hand with a harsh crackdown on dissent. The social capital, network built, and the SLE component of the EMBA program at MBSC has contributed greatly to growing my existing company and successfully launching my second business. "I have family ties back to Saudi Arabia. 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If he is not, then the man ruling in his place will not be an Arab Dalai Lama. His last interview with non-Saudi press was more than two years ago. Seen this way, Neom is MBSs declaration of intellectual and cultural bankruptcy on behalf of his country. In our meetings, the crown prince was charming, warm, informal, and intelligent. To our astonishment, he added that if he were to send a kill squad, hed choose a more valuable target, and more competent assassins. Go for it.. I am a complete montage expert! He pointed at al-Sarrah, who smiled but did not speak or even look back. Saudi Arabia's controversial Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was little known to the outside world before becoming its attention-grabbing de facto leader. January 2015 King Salman ascends to the throne after the death of King Abdullah, naming his 56-year-old nephew Mohammed bin Nayef as the crown prince. The new system arrived so fast that the first visitors were like an invasive species, an unnatural fit in the rigid social order of the kingdom. Normally! Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was the son of Ibn Saud, the founder of the first king of Saudi Arabia. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi citizens. In minutes I had one valid for a whole year. Salman attended private schools near Riyadh, and later graduated from King Saud University with a degree in law. The religious police were the losers in school, Ali Shihabi told me. 4732 Juman Street,BaylaSun District That was the drug deal that the Saudi state was based upon for many years, Theroux told me. According to Saudi police officials, the gunshots involved a drone that had flown into a secure area. In a way, it was like any other prison-industry program; in the United States, prisoners staff call centers, raise tilapia, or just push brooms in the prison corridor for a dollar an hour. Unit No. AlHathloul was thrown in prison on terrorism charges in 2018after MBS and his father had announced the imminent end of both policies. It hasnt been. Al-Awdas defenders say he is being punished for daring to speak with a moral voice independent of the monarchys. If there are people in Washington who think he will not be, then I cannot help them. Then I realized that MBS was not saying that the failure of his plan to remake the kingdom might lead to catastrophe. Prince Mohammed Bin Salman College (MBSC) of Business & Entrepreneurship is a new private higher education institution for both men and women. All thanks to this man! So there is always a constant fear," Sultan says.