Memo to the President on Saudi Arabia

Memo to: President Trump. From: The US ambassador to Saudi Arabia (if we had one.) Subject: Saudi crown prince visit Mr. President, in advance of the visit by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a.k.a. M.B.S., I want to share some thoughts:

It’s only a matter of time before King Salman turns over the reins of power to M.B.S., who’s already the effective ruler. M.B.S. is not a democrat, nor is he interested in promoting democracy. He’s a modernizing autocrat. The most we can expect from him is the modernization of Saudi Arabia’s economy and religious/social structure, but given how badly the country has stagnated from years of tentative reforms, this is deeply significant.

M.B.S. is definitely bold. I can think of no one else in the ruling family who would have put in place the profound social, religious and economic reforms that he’s dared to do – and all at once. But I can also think of no one in that family who’d have undertaken the bullying foreign policy initiatives, domestic power plays and excessive personal buying sprees he’s dared to do, all at once. They are two halves of the same M.B.S. package. Our job: help curb his bad impulses and nurture his good ones.

His potential is vast. M.B.S. is trying to forge a societal transformation in Saudi Arabia. Call it “one country, two systems.” For those who want piety, the mosque, Mecca and Islamic education, they’ll all be available and respected. But for those who want modern education and a more normal social life between men and women — and access to Western film, music and the arts — those too will be available and respected. No more religious domination. That is huge.

Because when the Saudi ruling family – feeling the need to demonstrate greater piety after the 1979 takeover by Islamist zealots of the Grand Mosque in Mecca — took Sunni Islam down a much more puritanical path, right when Iran’s ayatollahs did the same with Shiite Islam, they changed the face and culture of Islam. And it was not for the better. The Saudis closed all cinemas, banned concerts and fun, choked off trends for women’s empowerment and modern education and spread an antipluralistic, misogynist, anti-Western form of Islam far and wide that created the ideological and financial underpinnings of 9/11, ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Just think of the dollars we’ve spent countering Islamic extremism since 9/11. It’s trillions. Yet we now have a Saudi leader who is not just talking about but actually lifting the ban on women driving; freeing women to go to concerts by Western and Arab rock stars, join the military and more easily start businesses, while sharply curbing the power of the religious police and clerics in daily life; importing Western-style learning systems, reopening cinemas and vowing publicly to bring Islam back to its “moderate” origins; and, most recently, lifting the law that a Saudi woman who sought a divorce, and went to live with her parents, had to return to her husband

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