Investigation of man who can change the Middle East-L’Express

For years, at the royal court, his enemies nicknamed him “the wandering bear”. This young prince with volcanic temperament neglected his beard, had not studied in the prestigious American universities like all his cousins ​​and had nothing to do with good manners. Twenty years later, only its build remains the same. Everyone who crossed it will tell you: Mohammed Ben Salmane “aspires the atmosphere” when he enters a room. Many of them describe 20 centimeters larger than it is.

The face framed by his scarf with red and white checkers, the Saudi monarch destabilizes first then seduces, with his unique smile, so wide that he almost makes his eyes disappear. “We thought it was reserved, shady, but he was incredibly talkative and playful,” describes a diplomat who met him in Brussels in October.

These are the two faces of Mohammed Ben Salmane, a Saudi prince with stratospheric trajectory and a thousand legends. On the right side, its visionary instinct that makes the Western capitals dream, attracted by its crazy projects (the futuristic city Neom, the cultural oasis al-‘u, the 2034 football world cup) and its billions of dollars. On the face side, a megalomaniac and merciless dictator, capable of launching a war on a whim and having a journalist eliminated outside his borders.

To his confidants, he quotes his reading of Machiavelli, says he wants to live up to 300 years or joke about the series The Walking Dead, in which the zombies make him think of radical Islamists (the prince would also be a fan of Game of Thrones“even if too many kings are killed there”). As a child, he was modeling Alexander the Great, this king of Macedonia who knew how to conquer Egypt and Persia.

At the dawn of his reign, in 2017, MBS made a crazy promise, provoking only an upright of shoulders amused in the chancelleries: “The Middle East will be Europe of the 21st century.” Today, his ambitions no longer make anyone laugh. “He dreams of being a leader of the Arab-Muslim world, notes Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Gulf specialist at the Baker Institute, in the United States. It is no coincidence that, in recent years, the Saudis have taken the head of the Arab league and the organization of Islamic cooperation.

The prospect of an unprecedented period of peace which opens in the region, after the ceases in Lebanon, Gaza and the fall of Bashar el-Assad, offers a golden opportunity to Ben Salmane to put his promise in execution. Normalization of relations with Israel, creation of a Palestinian State, supervision of Iran, reconstruction of devastated countries … The site promises to be immense, but the young prince has already revolutionized his country in ten years and he can now count on The support of another “wandering bear”, which he was able to stay close to: Donald Trump.

Chapter I – A Saudi revolution

On the Tarmac of King Khaled Airport, the whole world is now crossing. Groups of American tourists, bare arms and sunglasses, have their passport controlled by women in black Abaya, which only their eyes exceed. Further on, European businessmen observe young Saudi hostesses in impeccable brown uniform, long black hair in the wind, which walk under the winter blazing sun. Masy scenes, but which have a sensational scent in this kingdom that has remained out of the time of so many years. “Barely ten years ago, this country pronounced fatwas against snowmen, blows a French entrepreneur accustomed to the Paris-Riyadic round trips. Today, it seems completely crazy.”

In January 2015, Saudi Arabia underwent an unusual cold wave. An influential sheik then prohibited snowmen, any human representation being, according to him, contrary to Islam. This same month of January, King Abdallah dies of pneumonia and his brother, Salmane, rises on the throne. The latter appoints his favorite son Minister of Defense and place him in the second rank in the succession line: at 29, Mohammed Ben Salmane becomes one of the most powerful men in the world, to everyone’s surprise. American intelligence had not planned its ascent and must update its emergency sheets.

Despite his young age, MBS has been working for years on a reform program for his country, called Vision 2030, which is based on three axes: “A dynamic society, a flourishing economy and an ambitious nation.” He intends to end Saudi dependence on the oil god. “We have a crown prince who wants to change all sectors of society at the same time: our relationship to history, culture, environment and technology, enthuses Samer Sahlah, professor at university From King-Saud, met in Riyadh.

As early as April 2015, MBS also took the head of Saudi Aramco, the national oil company and cash machine in the kingdom, with more than $ 100 billion in annual profits. He initiates international surveys institutes to assess the image of Saudi Arabia abroad: the kingdom is seen as a closed society where terrorists are rampant, where there are neither cinema nor entertainment and where women n ‘have no right. One by one, Ben Salmane will revolutionize each of these areas.

“It’s no longer the same country,” likes to tell the specialist in the Gulf François-Aïssa Touazi, who has known Riyadh for over twenty years. The customs police have disappeared, the veil is no longer compulsory and the Saudi people can now work, travel without a man and drive. The desert hosts giant concerts, where men and women mix, and the feminist film Barbie made a box at the box office last year. Last taboo in the process of falling: alcohol has made its official appearance in the Saudi capital, where a store reserved for non -Muslim diplomats can sell spirits.

“To enhance its changes, the kingdom communicates mainly via short sparkling videos on social networks, so people think that everything is only glitter in Saudi Arabia and do not apprehend the bottom of the current reforms, estimates the ‘Saudi author Ali Shihabi, close to power. Barely, the efforts that have been undertaken and the speed at which things have changed.

Chapter II – The crossing and exit of the desert

In his kingdom, bad tongues attribute her blood to the Bedouin origins of her mother, Fahda, considered as the favorite of the four wives of the king. The desert would forge the (bad) character. To secure Saudi Arabia in the 21st century, Mohammed Ben Salmane broke all the codes. Sometimes by cunning, often by force.

From his first days at the head of the army, in 2015, he amazed his generals by sending fighter planes against the Houthi rebels to neighboring Yemen, without even warning the American allies. War left more than 500,000 dead and causes one of the worst famines in history. A disaster, symbol of its beginnings of incredible violence: in barely two years, MBS launches a blockade of Qatar, takes the Lebanese Prime Minister hostage to force him to resign, sequesters 200 businessmen and Saudi princes in A hotel to extract billions of dollars … “Sometimes, it becomes necessary to show the extent of his authority, from his power, to force the change”, philosopher Samer Sahlah, of the University of King-Saud.

At first, his brutal methods do not put off the Westerners, curious to see this prosperous kingdom opening up to the world. But in October 2018, the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul caused a blast that MBS had not anticipated. According to the CIA, the crown prince commanded the attack on this former member of the Saudi court, who became a critical columnist at the Washington Post. The Turkish services had put the listening consulate and broadcast the soundtrack from its execution, then from its dismemberment. Absolute horror.

Immediately, the Saudi became radioactive for the other heads of state. Only Vladimir Putin will hug him at the G20 of Buenos Aires a few days after the murder revelation. “MBS has very badly experienced the isolation linked to the Khashoggi affair, he did not understand the violent criticism of Westerners,” reports a French businessman, regular visitor of the prince when the latter stays in his castle of Louveciennes.

Cut from the world, the young prince focuses on investments in his kingdom. He crosses the desert, knowing that his time will come. “By accelerating his reforms at this period, his goal was that when they hear about Saudi Arabia, foreigners think of footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and not Jamal Khashoggi,” said the same French entrepreneur. Emmanuel Macron will be the first Western leader to break the embargo around MBS, going to Saudi Arabia in December 2021.

Three years later, the question no longer even arises, as the crown prince is courted. The war in Ukraine has rekindled the hydrocarbon needs of Europe and no Western Chancellery would ignore Saudi investments, even if the latter have been late lately due to growth in the kingdom in the kingdom . In Brussels, we welcome it to have received it at the European Council last October, with red carpet and joint declaration. “It is the reign of pragmatism, judges a European diplomat. The world has changed enormously and we, Europeans, must commit to certain actors, otherwise we leave the Russians and the Chinese doing it.”

In a tormented Middle East, the Saudi prince seizes the opportunity to embody stability in the eyes of the world. “MBS has changed its image and now wants to be seen as a diplomat rather than the alleged murderer of Jamal Khashoggi or as the young falcon capable of rushing his country in the war in Yemen, explains Christopher Davidson, specialist in the Gulf at Durham University In the United Kingdom.