2022.07.28 MBS：沙漠中的暴君

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MBS: despot in the desert
A volatile millennial wields absolute power in Saudi Arabia. What will he do next?

Jul 28th 2022

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By Nicolas Pelham

No one wanted to play football with Muhammad bin Salman. Sure, the boy was a member of Saudi Arabia’s royal family, but so were 15,000 other people. His classmates preferred the company of his cousins, who were higher up the assumed order of succession, a childhood acquaintance recalls. As for the isolated child who would one day become crown prince, a family friend recounts hearing him called “little Saddam”.

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Home life was tricky for bin Salman, too (he is now more commonly known by his initials, mbs). His father, Salman, already had five sons with his first wife, an educated woman from an elite urban family. mbs’s mother, Salman’s third wife, was a tribeswoman. When mbs visited the palace where his father lived with his first wife, his older half-brothers mocked him as the “son of a Bedouin”. Later, his elder brothers and cousins were sent to universities in America and Britain. The Bedouin offspring of Prince Salman stayed in Riyadh to attend King Saud University.

As young adults, the royals sometimes cruised on superyachts together; mbs was reportedly treated like an errand boy, sent onshore to buy cigarettes. A photo from one of these holidays shows a group of 16 royals posing on a yacht-deck in shorts and sunglasses, the hills of the French Riviera behind them. In the middle is mbs’s cousin, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a billionaire investor dubbed “the Arabian Warren Buffett”. mbs, tall and broad-shouldered in a white t-shirt, is pushed to the farthest edge.

Fast forward to today, and mbs has moved to the centre of the frame, the most important decision-maker in Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy but mbs’s 86-year-old father, though nominally head of state, is rarely seen in public anymore. It has been clear for several years that mbs is in charge. “In effect,” a former Saudi intelligence agent told me, “King Salman is no longer king.”

At first glance the 36-year-old prince looks like the ruler many young Saudis had been waiting for, closer in age to his people than any previous king – 70% of the Saudi population is under 30. The millennial autocrat is said to be fanatical about the video game “Call of Duty”: he blasts through the inertia and privileges of the mosque and royal court as though he were fighting virtual opponents on screen.

His restless impatience and disdain for convention have helped him push through reforms that many thought wouldn’t happen for generations. The most visible transformation of Saudi Arabia is the presence of women in public where once they were either absent or closely guarded by their husband or father. There are other changes, too. Previously, the kingdom offered few diversions besides praying at the mosque; today you can watch Justin Bieber in concert, sing karaoke or go to a Formula 1 race. A few months ago I even went to a rave in a hotel. Saudis and foreigners danced barefoot on the sand until dawn, a couple kissed, women stripped down to tank tops and fruit juice laced with alcohol was served at an open bar.

But embracing Western consumer culture doesn’t mean embracing Western democratic values: it can as easily support a distinctively modern, surveillance state. On my recent trips to Saudi Arabia, people from all levels of society seemed terrified about being overheard voicing disrespect or criticism, something I’d never seen there before. “I’ve survived four kings,” said a veteran analyst who refused to speculate about why much of Jeddah, the country’s second-largest city, is being bulldozed: “Let me survive a fifth.”

The West, beguiled by promises of change and dependent on Saudi oil, at first seemed prepared to ignore mbs’s excesses. Then, in late 2018, Saudi officials in Istanbul murdered a Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, and dismembered his body with a bone saw. Even the most pro-Saudi leaders turned away.

Today, thanks to another autocrat, Vladimir Putin, the Saudi prince is back in demand. After Putin invaded Ukraine in February, the price of crude shot up. Boris Johnson was on a plane within weeks. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, previously a sworn enemy of the crown prince, embraced mbs in Riyadh in April. War even forced America’s president into a humiliating climbdown. On the campaign trail in 2020 Joe Biden had vowed to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah”. But on July 15th he went to make his peace with mbs – trying to avoid shaking mbs’s hand, he instead opted for a fist bump that left the two looking all the chummier. Even critics at home acknowledged mbs’s victory. “He made Biden look weak,” said a Saudi columnist in Jeddah. “He stood up to a superpower and won before the world.”

For mbs, this is a moment of triumph. His journey from the fringe of a photograph to the heart of power is almost complete. He will probably be king for decades. During that time, his country’s oil will be needed to sate the world’s enduring demand for energy.

A kingdom where the word of one man counts for so much depends utterly on his character. The hope is that, with his position secure, mbs will forswear the vengefulness and intolerance that produced Khashoggi’s murder. But some, among them his childhood classmates, fear something darker. They are reminded of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, a one-time moderniser who became so addicted to accumulating power that he turned reckless and dangerous. “At first power bestows grandeur,” a former Western intelligence officer told me, of mbs. “But then comes the loneliness, suspicion and fear that others will try to grab what you grabbed.”


During the early years of mbs’s ascent, I was vaguely aware of him as one prince among many. I probably wouldn’t have paid him much attention if an old contact of mine hadn’t joined his staff. His new boss, my contact said, was serious about shaking things up. He arranged the meeting at a faux-ancient mud-brick village on the outskirts of Riyadh in 2016. As my Economist colleagues and I approached, the gates of mbs’s compound suddenly slid open, like a Bond-villain’s lair. In the inner chamber sat mbs.

Reform has often been promised in Saudi Arabia – usually in response to American hectoring – but successive kings lacked the mettle to push change through. When the Al Sauds conquered Arabia in the 1920s, they made an alliance with an ultra-conservative religious group called the Wahhabis. In 1979, after a group of religious extremists staged a brief armed takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the Al Sauds decided to make the kingdom more devout to fend off a possible Islamic revolution, as had just happened in Iran. Wahhabi clerics were empowered to run society as they saw fit.

The Wahhabis exercised control through the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, otherwise known as the religious police. They whacked the ankles of women whose hair poked through their veil and lashed the legs of men who wore shorts. The arrangement suited the House of Saud. Wahhabism provided social control and gave legitimacy to the Saudi state, leaving the royals free to enjoy their oil wealth in the more permissive environments of London and Paris, or behind the gates of their palaces.

During an argument with his mother he reportedly sprayed her ceiling with bullets

I’m loth to admit it now, but as the prince talked in Riyadh about his plans to modernise society and the economy, I was impressed by his enthusiasm, vision and command of the details. He gave what turned out to be accurate answers about how and when his reforms would happen. Though he was not yet crown prince, he frequently referred to Saudi Arabia as “my” country. We arrived at around 9pm. At 2am, mbs was still in full flow.

mbs was affable, self-assured, smiling. His advisers were more subdued. If they spoke at all, it was to robotically repeat their master’s lines. Yet when mbs left the room to take a call, they started chatting animatedly. As the prince re-entered, silence fell.

Like many in those early years, I was excited about what mbs might do for the kingdom. When I returned to the capital a few months later I saw a number of men wearing shorts. I kept looking over my shoulder for the religious police, but none came – they had been stripped of their powers of arrest.

As crown prince, mbs has introduced a code of law so that judicial sentencing accords with state guidelines, not a judge’s own interpretation of the Koran. He criminalised stoning to death and forced marriage. The most overt change involved the role of women. mbs attacked guardianship laws that prevented women from working, travelling, owning a passport, opening a business, having hospital treatment or divorcing without approval from a male relative. In practice, many Saudi women have found these new rights hard to claim in a patriarchal society, and men can still file claims of disobedience against female relatives. But mbs’s reforms were more than cosmetic. Some clerics were jailed; the rest soon fell into line.

mbs seemed to relish breaking religious taboos. His new state tv channel broached the subject of homosexuality. In September 2017 he lifted a ban on Tinder, a dating app. The following year one of Mecca’s imams was dragooned into dealing the first deck at a new card-game competition, a pastime hitherto denounced as a sinful distraction. He brought many new sports to the kingdom: boxing, wrestling, monster-jam motorsports for turbo-charged 4x4s and even a Pamplona-style running of the bulls. “He’s a fucking rock-star,” said an American spectator who’d watched him receive a standing ovation at the Formula 1 race in Jeddah late last year.

For foreigners, Riyadh is less forbidding these days. “I’m afraid I’ll be caught for not drinking,” a teetotal businessman told me. “There’s cocaine, alcohol and hookers like I haven’t seen in southern California,” says another party-goer. “It’s really heavy duty stuff.” A former senior Saudi official says sex workers, many from eastern Europe, can earn $3,000 for attending a party and $10,000 for staying the night.

When mbs first entered public life he had a reputation for being as strait-laced as his father, rare among royals. That quickly changed. Many of the people interviewed for this article said that they believe mbs frequently uses drugs, which he denies. A court insider says that in 2015 his friends decided that he needed some r&r on an island in the Maldives. According to investigative journalists Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck in their book “Blood and Oil”, 150 models were recruited to join the gathering and were then shuttled “by golf cart to a medical centre to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases”. Several international music stars were flown in, including Afrojack, a Dutch dj. Then the press blew mbs’s cover.

Thereafter, the prince preferred to unwind off the Red Sea coast. At weekends his entourage formed a flotilla by mooring their yachts around his, Serene, which has a driving range and a cinema. According to a former official, “dj mbs”, as his friends called him, would spin the discs wearing his trademark cowboy hat. The yacht is only one of the luxuries mbs has splurged on. He also bought a £230m ersatz French chateau near Versailles, built in 2008 (the meditation room doubles as an aquarium). He is said to have boasted that he wanted to be the first trillionaire.

We put these and other allegations in this article to mbs’s representatives. Through the Saudi embassy in London, they issued a broad denial, saying “the allegations are denied and are without foundation.”

mbs’s loosening of social mores reflects the values of many of his youthful peers, in Saudi and beyond – as does his taste for the flashier side of life. Yet despite the social revolution, the prince is no keener than Wahhabi clerics on letting people think for themselves. Shortly before lifting a ban on women driving in 2018, mbs’s officials imprisoned Loujain al-Hathloul, one of the leaders of the campaign for women’s rights. Her family say jailers waterboarded and electrocuted her, and that Saud al-Qahtani, one of mbs’s closest advisers, was present during her torment and threatened to rape her. (A un investigation found reasonable grounds to believe that Qahtani was involved in the torture of female activists. Qahtani allegedly told one of these women: “I’ll do whatever I like to you, and then I’ll dissolve you and flush you down the toilet.”) Hathloul was charged with inciting change to the ruling system. The message was clear: only one person was allowed to do that.

Mbs is ruthlessly ambitious – he reportedly loved reading about Alexander the Great as a teenager – but he also owes his rise to some extraordinary twists of fortune. Succession can be an unpredictable affair in Saudi Arabia. The monarchy is only two generations old, founded in 1932, and the crown has so far moved from brother to brother among the founding ruler’s sons. That has become harder as the prospective heirs age. mbs’s father wasn’t tipped to be king, but after his two older brothers died unexpectedly in 2011 and 2012, he was catapulted up the line of succession.


When Salman became the heir-designate aged 76, he needed a chief of staff. Most courtiers expected him to choose one of the suave, English-speaking children of his first wife. Instead he appointed a son who spoke Arabic with a guttural Bedouin accent. (mbs has learned English fast since then: when we met in 2016 he sometimes corrected his translator.)

The choice to elevate mbs was less surprising to those who knew his father well. Salman had dedicated himself to his job as governor of Riyadh rather than chasing more lucrative commissions, and was a stickler for 8am starts, even in his 70s. He was known as the family disciplinarian, not averse to giving wayward royals a thwack with his walking stick or even a spell in his private prison. He clearly saw something of himself in his sixth son. mbs might love video games, but he was also a hard worker and keen to advance.

mbs put few limits on what he was prepared to do to achieve control. He earned the nickname Abu Rasasa – father of the bullet – after widespread rumours that he sent a bullet in the post to an official who ruled against him in a land dispute (Saudi officials have previously denied this rumour). He was fearsome in private, too. “There are these terrible tempers, smashing up offices, trashing the palace,” says a source with palace connections. “He’s extremely violent.” Several associates describe him as having wild mood swings. Two former palace insiders say that, during an argument with his mother, he once sprayed her ceiling with bullets. According to multiple sources and news reports, he has locked his mother away.

Some observers fear that MBS may become only more dangerous as oil reserves start to decline and the treasure trove shrinks

It’s hard to say how many wives he has; officially, there’s just one, a glamorous princess called Sara bint Mashour, but courtiers say he has at least one more. mbs presents his family life as normal and happy: earlier this year he told the Atlantic magazine that he eats breakfast with his children each morning (he has three boys and two girls, according to Gulf News – the eldest is said to be 11). One diplomat spoke of mbs’s kindness to his wife. But other sources inside the royal circle say that, on at least one occasion, Princess Sara was so badly beaten by her husband that she had to seek medical treatment.

We put this and other allegations in this piece to mbs’s representatives, who described them as “plain fabrication”, adding that “the kingdom is unfortunately used to false allegations made against its leadership, usually based on politically (or other) motivated malicious sources, particularly discredited individuals who have a long record of fabrications and baseless claims.”

mbs finally got a taste of political power in 2015 when Salman became king. Salman appointed his son deputy crown prince and minister of defence. One of mbs’s first moves was to launch a war in neighbouring Yemen. Even America, the kingdom’s closest military ally, was told only at the last minute.

There was an obvious obstacle in mbs’s path to the throne: his cousin, the 57-year-old heir-designate, Muhammad bin Nayef. Bin Nayef was the intelligence chief and the kingdom’s main interlocutor with the cia. He was widely credited with stamping out al-Qaeda in Saudi after 9/11. In June 2017 bin Nayef was summoned to meet the elderly king at his palace in Mecca.

The story of what happened next has emerged from press reports and my interviews. It seems that bin Nayef arrived by helicopter and took the lift to the fourth floor. Instead of the monarch, mbs’s agents were waiting. Bin Nayef was stripped of his weapons and phone, and told that a royal council had dismissed him. He was left alone to consider his options. Seven hours later, a court videographer filmed the charade of mbs kissing his cousin, then accepting his abdication as crown prince. King Salman kept a back seat throughout. Bin Nayef is now in detention (his uncle, who also had a claim to the throne, apparently intervened to try and protect bin Nayef, but was himself later detained). The staged resignation – an old trick of Saddam Hussein’s – would become mbs’s signature move.

That was just the warm-up act. In October 2017 mbs hosted an international investment conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh. At “Davos in the desert”, the likes of Christine Lagarde, Son Masayoshi and other business glitterati listened to mbs’s pitch for Saudi Arabia’s post-oil future, including the construction of Neom, a new $500bn “smart city”. The event was a hit. Diplomatic grumblings about the war in Yemen or the fate of America’s security partner, Muhammad bin Nayef, faded.

The gathering was also an opportunity to invite back royals who were often abroad. Once the foreigners had left, mbs pounced. Hundreds of princes and businessmen were swept up. According to a biography of mbs by Ben Hubbard, a New York Times journalist, one of them realised something was amiss only when they got to their hotel room: there were no pens, razors or glasses – nothing that could be used as a weapon.

mbs held the detainees in the Ritz-Carlton for several weeks (the Marriott and other hotels were also commandeered to house the overflow). Prisoners’ phones were confiscated. Some were said to have been hooded, deprived of sleep and beaten until they agreed to transfer money and hand over an inventory of their assets. All told, mbs’s guests at the Ritz-Carlton coughed up about $100bn.

Even royals previously thought untouchable, such as the powerful prince who ran the national guard, got similar treatment. Princess Basma, the youngest child of the second king of Saudi Arabia, was jailed for three years without charge or access to a lawyer; after being released she still had to wear an electronic ankle bracelet, according to a close associate of hers.

The crushing of the royals and business elite was billed as a crackdown on corruption – and undoubtedly it netted many corruptly acquired assets, which mbs said would be returned to the Saudi treasury. The methods, however, looked more like something from a gangster film than a judicial procedure.


Interrogations were overseen by Saud al-Qahtani, who reported directly to mbs whenever a detainee broke and gave out their bank details. (All the allegations in this piece concerning Qahtani were put to him via his lawyer. No response was given.) Qahtani had installed himself as one of mbs’s favoured henchmen, though earlier in his career, he’d plotted against Salman and his son, trying to sideline them with rumours that Salman had dementia. Qahtani was so loyal to the former faction that he’d named his son after his then boss. According to a former courtier, on the day of the old king’s funeral the two men had it out: mbs slapped Qahtani in the face. Later, mbs let Qahtani prove his worth and brought him on to his staff. Qahtani duly named his younger son Muhammad.

On paper, Qahtani was a communications adviser, a former journalist who understood Twitter and used an army of bots and loyal followers to intimidate critics on social media (his office included giant screens and holograms that staff used for target-practice with laser guns). In practice he was entrusted with mbs’s most important and violent missions – the ones that established his grip on power.

His remit extended far beyond Saudi’s borders. In 2016 he kidnapped Prince Sultan, a minor royal who had been bad-mouthing mbs. mbs offered his jet to fly Sultan from Paris to Cairo – instead, the plane was diverted to Saudi Arabia. According to Hope’s and Scheck’s book, Qahtani posed as Captain Saud, an airline pilot, though surprisingly one who had an expensive Hublot watch.

Even people who have nothing to do with politics have become afraid to speak near a functioning mobile phone

With rendition strategies like this, and the cash tap shut off, even royals who weren’t inside the Ritz-Carlton felt the pressure to divest themselves of ostentatious assets. The father of the Saudi ambassador to Britain put Glympton Park, his beloved 2,000-acre estate in the Cotswolds, up for sale. Riyadh’s jewellers did a roaring trade pawning the diamonds of lesser royals. “It’s like the Romanovs selling their Fabergé eggs,” said an adviser to an auction house.

Many commoners rejoiced at the downfall of their entitled elite. Princes and princesses who once lived off huge handouts began looking for jobs. Their titles became irrelevant. Unable to afford the cost of irrigation, their green ranches became desert again. Banks turned them away. One financial adviser recalled his response to princes trying to get credit on the strength of their royal status: “You call yourselves princes, but they say there’s only one prince now.”

The Ritz-Carlton episode was just one element of an extraordinary project of centralisation. mbs yanked control of various security services back from the princes. He took charge of Aramco, the semi-autonomous state oil company. He installed himself as boss of the sovereign-wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund. “He destroyed all the powerful families,” says a retired diplomat. By late 2017, law, money and security in Saudi all flowed directly from him.

Among those who lost out were the fellow princes who had pushed a young mbs to the edge of the family photo on the yacht all those years ago. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, in the centre of that shot, surrendered part of his $17bn wealth. As the shakedown widened, mbs’s elder half-siblings put up their yacht for sale. Many of his cousins were locked up. “Payback time,” one victim said.

While mbs was squeezing the elite at home, he was forging some important friendships abroad. mbs and Donald Trump, who was elected president in 2016, had a lot in common. Both had the hunger of the underdog and loathed the snooty policymaking establishments in their countries; they revelled in provocation. The historic compact, by which Saudi Arabia provided oil to American consumers and America guaranteed the country’s security, had frayed in recent years. Barack Obama’s hurried exit from Iraq in 2011 and his nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 had left Saudi Arabia worried that it could no longer rely on American protection. America’s development of its own shale-oil reserves had also reduced its dependence on Saudi oil. Then Trump and mbs got cosy.

With the Trump administration’s tacit (and sometimes explicit) support, mbs set about treating the entire Middle East much as he did Saudi Arabia, trying to push aside rulers whom he found to be inconvenient. He announced a blockade of Qatar, a tiny gas-rich state to the east of Saudi Arabia. In 2017, angered by Lebanon’s dealings with Iran, mbs invited the prime minister, Saad Hariri, a long-time beneficiary of Saudi patronage, on a starlit camping trip. Hariri turned up, had his phone confiscated and soon found himself reading out a resignation speech on tv.

Both moves ultimately backfired. But Trump’s Middle East adviser, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, did little to discourage such antics. Together, he and mbs dreamt up a new regional order over WhatsApp, calling each other “Jared” and “Muhammad”. Their rapport was so great that, at Kushner’s prompting, mbs started the process of recognising Israel. His father, still officially king, put a stop to that.

mbs visited America in March 2018, hanging out in Silicon Valley with Peter Thiel and Tim Cook, and meeting celebrities, including Rupert Murdoch, James Cameron and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. Many people were keen to meet the man who controlled a $230bn sovereign-wealth fund. To his frustration, they were less willing to reciprocate by investing in the kingdom.

That October the intercontinental bonhomie came to an abrupt halt. I was due to go to a conference in Turkey that month. A Saudi journalist I knew, Jamal Khashoggi, got in touch to suggest meeting up: he was also going to be in Istanbul, for an appointment at the consulate. Khashoggi was a court insider whose criticisms of mbs in the Washington Post and elsewhere had attracted much attention. He seemed to be making more effort than usual to stay in touch. While I was at the conference a friend of his phoned me: Jamal still hadn’t emerged from the consulate, he said. By the time I got there, Turkish police were cordoning off the building.

The full story soon came out in leaked intelligence reports and, later, a un inquiry. A Saudi hit squad, which reportedly co-ordinated with Saud al-Qahtani, had flown to Istanbul. As they waited for Khashoggi to enter the consulate, they discussed plans for dismembering his body. According to tapes recorded inside the consulate by Turkish intelligence, Khashoggi was told, “We’re coming to get you.” There was a struggle, followed by the sound of plastic sheets being wrapped. A cia report said that mbs approved the operation.

mbs has said he takes responsibility for the murder, but denies ordering it. He sacked Qahtani and another official implicated in the intelligence reports. The fallout was immediate. Companies and speakers pulled out of that year’s Davos in the desert; the Gates Foundation ended its partnership with misk, an artistic and educational charity set up by the prince. Ari Emanuel, a Hollywood agent, cancelled a $400m deal with the kingdom.


The crown prince seems to have been genuinely surprised at the animus – “disappointed”, says an associate. Hadn’t he committed to all the reforms the West had been asking for? Perhaps he had underestimated the outcry provoked by going after a well-connected international figure, as opposed to a royal unknown outside Saudi Arabia. Or perhaps he understood Western governments’ priorities better than they did themselves. They had done little when Muhammad bin Nayef, their partner in battling terrorism, had disappeared; they had shrugged at reports of torture in the Ritz-Carlton, and at mbs’s reckless bombardment of Yemen. Why did they have so much to say about the killing of a single journalist?

Three years after the Khashoggi killing, Davos in the desert opened with the singer Gloria Gaynor. As images of smiling children flashed up on a giant screen behind her, she broke into her disco anthem, “I Will Survive”, asking the audience: “Did you think I’d crumble? Did you think I’d lay down and die?”

The chief executives of private-equity giants BlackRock and Blackstone were back, as were the heads of Goldman Sachs, SocGen and Standard Chartered. Even Amazon sent a representative despite the fact that its boss, Jeff Bezos, owns the Washington Post, the paper that employed Khashoggi. Meanwhile, Qahtani was creeping back into favour at the royal court – although he had been implicated by the un for Khashoggi’s murder, a Saudi court took the decision not to charge him.

He blasts through the privileges of the mosque and royal court as if fighting opponents on screen

mbs revitalised the near-dormant sovereign-wealth fund, pumping tens of billions of dollars into tech, entertainment and sports, to create a softer, more appealing image of Saudi and co-opt new partners. In April 2020, the fund led a consortium to buy Newcastle United, a premier-league football team (the deal took 18 months). The following year it launched an audacious bid to create Saudi’s own golf tour, the LIV series, hoping to lure players with a prize pot of $255m, far larger than that of American tournaments. At the first LIV tour this year, some top players boycotted the event, others went for the cash.

Joe Biden has proved tougher to woo. Soon after becoming president, Biden withdrew American military support for the war in Yemen. He wouldn’t talk to mbs, insisting that communications go through King Salman instead. He didn’t even nominate an ambassador to Riyadh for 15 months. The chat everywhere was that Saudi-American relations were in a deep freeze. Then, in February 2022, mbs had a stroke of luck: Russia invaded Ukraine.

In the days after war broke out, Biden himself tried to call mbs. The crown prince declined to speak to the president. He did take Putin’s call, however. The two men were already close. mbs had personally brought Russia into an expanded version of the opec cartel in order for Saudi Arabia to keep control of global oil production. Putin cemented the friendship in 2018 at the g20 summit in Buenos Aires, which took place weeks after the Khashoggi killing. While Western leaders shunned mbs, Putin gave the Saudi ruler a high-five before sitting down next to him.

mbs’s defiance of America seems to have paid off. After months of evasion, Biden reluctantly agreed to meet mbs in Jeddah in July, on the prince’s own turf and his own terms. The visit gave mbs recognition but did little to rebuild relations. There wasn’t even a concrete assurance of increasing oil production.

Some in the American foreign-policy establishment remain hopeful that mbs could become a helpful partner in the region, pointing to his recent retreat from confrontation with Qatar and his eagerness to find a diplomatic exit from Yemen. Perhaps, they say, he is maturing as a leader.

This seems optimistic. mbs’s disastrous campaign in Yemen was ostensibly in support of the country’s president but in April, hours after being summoned to a meeting and offered Arabic coffee and dates, Yemen’s president was reading out a resignation speech on tv. mbs took it upon himself to get rid of him personally – suggesting that his mode of international diplomacy remains as high-handed as ever. “What they’ve learned”, says one foreign analyst, “is don’t murder journalists who dine regularly with congressmen in the United States.”

The West has taught mbs something else, too – something that autocrats the world over may draw comfort from. No matter the sin, they would argue, if you sit tight through the odium and fury, eventually the financiers, the celebrities, even the Western leaders, will come running back. At 36, mbs has time on his side. Some observers fear that he may become only more dangerous as oil reserves start to decline and the treasure trove shrinks. “What happens when he’s a middle-aged man ruling a middle-income country and starts to get bored?” asks a diplomat who knows mbs personally. “Will he go on more adventures?”

Earlier this year, I visited an old friend in his office in Saudi Arabia. Before we started talking, he put his phone in a pouch that blocks the signal, to prevent government spies from listening in. Dissidents do that kind of thing in police states like China, but I’d never seen it before in Saudi Arabia. It isn’t just people involved with politics who are taking such precautions: most Saudis have become afraid to speak near a functioning mobile phone. People used to talk fairly openly in their offices, homes and cafés. Now, they are picked up for almost nothing.

As we chatted over the whir of his office air conditioning, my friend reeled off a list of people he knew who had been detained in the past month: a retired air-force chief who died in prison, a hospital administrator hauled away from his desk, a mother taken in front of her seven children, a lawyer who died seven days after his release from prison. “These people aren’t rabble rousers,” my friend said. “No one understands why.”

Officially, the government says it has no political prisoners. Rights groups reckon that thousands have been swept up in mbs’s dragnet. I’ve covered the Middle East since the 1990s and can’t think of anywhere where so many of my own contacts are behind bars.

Few ordinary Saudis predicted that when mbs was done trampling on the elites and the clerics, he would come for them next. Bringing Saudis into the modern, networked, online world has made it easier for the state to monitor what they are saying. A Red Crescent employee called Abdulrahman al-Sadhan used to run a satirical Twitter account under a pseudonym. In 2018 mbs’s agents arrested him and held him incommunicado for two years. American prosecutors later charged two former Twitter employees with allegedly handing over the real names behind various accounts to a Saudi official – al-Sadhan’s family believes that his name was among them. (The trial of one employee is ongoing; he denies passing on information to Saudi officials.)


On the face of it, mbs has nothing to worry about. Public opinion polls – if they can be trusted – suggest he is popular, particularly with younger Saudis. But there is a growing sense that discontent is brewing beneath the surface. mbs has broken crucial social contracts with the Saudi populace, by reducing handouts while, at the same time, dispensing with the tradition of hearing the feedback of ordinary people after Friday prayers.

It isn’t hard to imagine some of the issues they’d raise if they had the chance. Many people are struggling as the cost of living rises. When other governments were cushioning their citizens during the pandemic, mbs slashed fuel subsidies and tripled vat. Unable to afford the cost of pumping water, some farmers left crops to wither in the field. Fees for permits and fines have spiralled, too. Though mbs speaks eloquently about the country’s youth, he is struggling to find them jobs. Unemployment remains stubbornly stuck in double digits. Half of the jobless have a university degree, but most white-collar workers I met on mbs’s mega-projects were foreign.

Saudi Arabia’s attempts to diversify its economy – and so compensate for the long-term decline of oil reserves – isn’t going well either. The pandemic delayed plans for a rapid increase in international tourism. Extorting billions of dollars from your relatives may not be the best way to convince investors that the kingdom is a liberal haven.

People describe MBS as having wild mood swings. He once locked a minister in a toilet for ten hours

The young prince has reversed even the baby steps towards democracy taken by previous kings. Municipal elections have been suspended – as a cost-cutting exercise, explains the supine press. The Shura Council, a consultative body of 150 people, has only met online since the pandemic (other institutions have gathered in person for months). “I wish I had more of a voice,” said one member. Whenever I mentioned the prince, his leg twitched.

A frequent visitor to the royal court says mbs now gives the impression of someone who’s always thinking that people are plotting against him. He seems to be preoccupied with loyalty. He fills key posts either with young royals, foreigners with no local base to threaten him or people he has already broken. A government minister, Ibrahim Assaf, was one of those locked up in the Ritz-Carlton – two months later mbs sent him to the World Economic Forum as his representative. A senior executive on one of his construction projects is someone who says he was tortured in one of his prisons. “He went from being strung naked from his ankles, beaten and stripped of all his assets to a high-level project manager,” says a close acquaintance of the man.

All remain vulnerable to mbs’s tantrums. Saudi sources say he once locked a minister in a toilet for ten hours. (The minister later appeared on tv blabbering platitudes about the prince’s wisdom.) A senior official I’ve spoken to says he wants out. “Everyone in his circle is terrified of him,” says an insider. And that could make it hard for him to govern a country of 35m people effectively. Former courtiers say no one close to mbs is prepared to offer a truthful assessment of whether his increasingly grandiose schemes are viable. “Saying no”, says one, “is not something they will ever do.”

If mbs has a mission beyond extending his power, you might expect to find it in Neom, the city he promised to build in the desert. Neom would be nothing less than “a civilisational leap for humanity”, he said in 2017. Head-spinning details followed. The city’s food would be grown on hydroponic walls on a floating structure. It would be powered by the world’s largest green-hydrogen plant. Thousands of snow-blowers would create a ski resort on a nearby mountain. One day it would have driverless cars and passenger drones.

According to the official timetable, the main city would be completed by 2020. Further districts would be added by 2025. The prince’s tourism minister, Ahmed al-Khateeb, dismissed rumours that the timetable was proving over-ambitious. “Come see with your eyes and not with your ears,” he urged. So I went.

Finding Neom was the first problem. There were no road signs to it. After three hours’ drive we came to the spot indicated by the map. It was bare, but for the odd fig tree. Camels strolled across the empty highway. Piles of rubble lined the road, remnants of the town bulldozed to make way for the mighty metropolis.

The designated area is nearly the size of Belgium. As far as I could tell, only two projects had been completed, mbs’s palace, and something Google Earth calls “The Neom Experience Centre” (when I drove to see it, it was obscured by a prefabricated hut). The only other solid building I could see was a hotel constructed before Neom was conceived: the Royal Tulip. A poster in the lobby urged me to “Discover Neom”. But when I asked for a guide the hotel manager cursed my sister with Arabic vulgarities and tried to shoo me away. There was no sign of the media hub with “frictionless facilitation”, “advanced infrastructure” and “collaborative ecosystems” promised by the Neom website. Neom’s head of communications and media, Wayne Borg, said he was “out of Kingdom at present”.

The hotel restaurant was teeming with consultants – all the ones I met were foreign. (I later found a Saudi project manager. “We think we’re about to start working, but every two months the consultants coin a new plan,” he told me. “They’re still doing plans of plans.”) There was a kind of manic short-termism among these foreigners. Many were paid $40,000 a month, plus handsome bonuses. “It’s like riding a bull,” one of the Neom consultants told me. “You know you’re gonna fall, that no one can last on a bull longer than a minute and a half, two minutes, so you make the most of it.”

Despite the high salaries, there are reports that foreigners are leaving the Neom project because they find the gap between expectations and reality so stressful. The head of Neom is said by his friends to be “terrified” at the lack of progress.

Eventually, I found a retired Saudi air-force technician who offered to drive me around the city for $600. He took me to a sculpture standing in the desert with the words, “I ❤ Neom”. A short way farther on we found a new stretch of tarmac, said to mark the edge of the dream city. Beyond it, the lone and level sands stretched far away.■

Nicolas Pelham is The Economist’s Middle East correspondent



MBS：沙漠中的暴君
一个不稳定的千禧年人在沙特阿拉伯掌握着绝对权力。他接下来会做什么？

2022年7月28日


作者：尼古拉斯-佩勒姆

没有人愿意和穆罕默德-本-萨勒曼一起踢足球。当然，这个男孩是沙特阿拉伯王室的成员，但其他15000人也是如此。他的同学们更喜欢和他的表兄弟们在一起，因为他们在假定的继承顺序上更靠前，一位童年的熟人回忆说。至于这个有朝一日会成为王储的孤立的孩子，一位家庭朋友回忆说，他听到有人叫他 "小萨达姆"。

对本-萨勒曼来说，家庭生活也很棘手（他现在更多的是以他名字的缩写mbs而闻名）。他的父亲萨勒曼与他的第一任妻子已经有了五个儿子，他的第一任妻子是一位来自城市精英家庭的受过教育的女性，而本-萨勒曼的母亲，即萨勒曼的第三任妻子，是一位部落妇女。当mbs参观他父亲与第一任妻子居住的宫殿时，他同父异母的哥哥们嘲笑他是 "贝都因人的儿子"。后来，他的哥哥和表弟们被送到了美国和英国的大学。萨勒曼亲王的贝都因后代留在利雅得，进入沙特国王大学。

作为年轻的成年人，王室成员有时会一起乘坐超级游艇巡游；据说姆布被当作跑腿的，被派到岸上去买烟。其中一张照片显示，16位皇室成员穿着短裤、戴着太阳镜在游艇甲板上摆姿势，他们身后是法国里维埃拉的山丘。中间是Mbs的表弟阿尔瓦利德-本-塔拉勒王子，一位被称为 "阿拉伯的巴菲特 "的亿万富翁投资者。Mbs，身穿白色T恤，身材高大，肩膀宽阔，被推到最边上。

快进到今天，Mbs已经移到了画面的中心，他是世界上最大的石油出口国--沙特阿拉伯最重要的决策人。沙特阿拉伯是一个绝对的君主制国家，但Mbs的86岁的父亲，虽然名义上是国家元首，但已经很少在公开场合出现了。几年来一直很清楚，mbs在掌权。"实际上，"一位前沙特情报人员告诉我，"萨勒曼国王不再是国王了。"

乍一看，这位36岁的王子像是许多年轻的沙特人一直在等待的统治者，在年龄上比以往任何一位国王都更接近他的人民--沙特人口的70%都在30岁以下。据说这位千禧年的独裁者对电子游戏 "使命召唤 "非常狂热：他在清真寺和王室法庭的惰性和特权中轰轰烈烈，仿佛在与屏幕上的虚拟对手作战。

他不安分的急躁情绪和对传统的蔑视，帮助他推动了许多人认为几代人都不会发生的改革。沙特阿拉伯最明显的变化是妇女出现在公共场合，而以前她们要么不出现，要么被丈夫或父亲严加看管。也有其他的变化。以前，除了在清真寺祈祷之外，这个王国几乎没有提供什么娱乐活动；今天，你可以观看贾斯汀-比伯（Justin Bieber）的演唱会，唱卡拉OK，或者去看一级方程式赛车。几个月前，我甚至去参加了一个酒店的狂欢活动。沙特人和外国人赤脚在沙滩上跳舞到天亮，一对情侣接吻，女人脱得只剩背心，开放的酒吧里还供应掺有酒精的果汁。

但是，拥抱西方消费文化并不意味着拥抱西方民主价值观：它可以很容易地支持一个独特的现代监视国家。在我最近的沙特阿拉伯之行中，来自社会各阶层的人似乎都很害怕被人听到不尊重或批评的声音，这是我以前在那里从未见过的。"我已经熬过了四个国王，"一位资深分析家说，他拒绝猜测为什么该国第二大城市吉达的大部分地区正在被推平。"让我在第五个国王面前活下来吧。"

西方国家被变革的承诺所迷惑，并依赖于沙特的石油，起初似乎准备无视Mbs的过度行为。然后，在2018年底，沙特官员在伊斯坦布尔谋杀了华盛顿邮报的专栏作家贾马尔-卡舒吉，并用骨锯肢解了他的尸体。即使是最支持沙特的领导人也转身离开。

今天，由于另一个独裁者弗拉基米尔-普京的存在，沙特王子又有了需求。在普京2月入侵乌克兰后，原油价格飙升。鲍里斯-约翰逊在几周内就坐上了飞机。土耳其的雷杰普-塔伊普-埃尔多安，以前是王储的死敌，4月份在利雅得拥抱了MBS。战争甚至迫使美国总统做出了羞辱性的妥协。在2020年的竞选活动中，乔-拜登曾发誓要把沙特阿拉伯变成一个 "贱民"。但在7月15日，他去与Mbs讲和--他试图避免与Mbs握手，而是选择了握拳，让两人看起来更亲密。即使是国内的批评者也承认Mbs的胜利。"他让拜登看起来很弱，"吉达的一位沙特专栏作家说。"他在一个超级大国面前挺身而出，在世界面前获胜。"

对Mbs来说，这是一个胜利的时刻。他从照片的边缘到权力核心的旅程几乎已经完成。他可能会做几十年的国王。在此期间，他的国家将需要石油来满足世界对能源的持久需求。

在一个王国里，一个人的话如此重要，完全取决于他的性格。人们希望，随着他地位的稳固，马布斯将放弃导致卡舒吉被谋杀的复仇和不容忍。但有些人，其中包括他的童年同学，担心的是更黑暗的东西。他们想起了伊拉克独裁者萨达姆-侯赛因，这个曾经的现代主义者如此沉迷于权力的积累，以至于他变得鲁莽和危险。"一位前西方情报官员告诉我，"起初，权力赋予了宏伟的目标。"但随之而来的是孤独、怀疑和恐惧，担心别人会试图抢夺你抢到的东西。"


在MBS崛起的早期，我隐约意识到他是众多王子中的一个。如果不是我的一个老联络人加入了他的员工，我可能不会太注意他。我的联系人说，他的新老板很想改变现状。他于2016年将会议安排在利雅得郊区的一个仿古泥砖村。当我和《经济学人》的同事走近时，Mbs的院子大门突然推开，就像邦德小人的巢穴。内厅里坐着Mbs。

沙特阿拉伯经常承诺进行改革--通常是为了回应美国的责难--但历届国王都缺乏推动变革的勇气。当沙特人在20世纪20年代征服阿拉伯时，他们与一个称为瓦哈比派的极端保守的宗教团体结成了联盟。1979年，在一群宗教极端分子对麦加大清真寺进行了短暂的武装接管后，沙特决定使王国更加虔诚，以抵御可能发生的伊斯兰革命，就像刚刚在伊朗发生的那样。瓦哈比教士被授权以他们认为合适的方式管理社会。

瓦哈比教派通过促进美德和防止罪恶委员会（又称宗教警察）进行控制。如果妇女的头发戳破了面纱，他们就抽打其脚踝，如果男子穿短裤，就鞭打其腿部。这种安排适合沙特家族。瓦哈比主义提供了社会控制，并为沙特国家提供了合法性，使王室成员可以在伦敦和巴黎更宽松的环境中或在其宫殿的大门后面自由地享受他们的石油财富。

据报道，在一次与母亲的争吵中，他向母亲的天花板喷射了子弹。

我现在不愿承认，但当王子在利雅得谈论他的社会和经济现代化计划时，他的热情、远见和对细节的掌握给我留下了深刻印象。他对他的改革将如何和何时发生给出了准确的答案。虽然他还不是王储，但他经常把沙特阿拉伯称为 "我的 "国家。我们在晚上9点左右到达。凌晨2点，MBS仍在全力工作。

Mbs和蔼可亲，自信满满，面带微笑。他的顾问们则比较低调。如果他们说话，那也是机械地重复他们主人的台词。然而，当Mbs离开房间去接电话时，他们开始热烈地交谈起来。当王子再次进入时，一片寂静。

像早年的许多人一样，我对mbs可能为王国做什么感到兴奋。几个月后，当我回到首都时，我看到许多男人都穿着短裤。我一直在寻找宗教警察，但没有人过来--他们已经被剥夺了逮捕权。

作为王储，Mbs引入了一项法律准则，使司法判决符合国家准则，而不是法官自己对古兰经的解释。他把用石头砸死和强迫婚姻定为犯罪。最明显的变化涉及妇女的角色。MBS抨击了监护法，这些法律阻止妇女工作、旅行、拥有护照、开办企业、在医院治疗或未经男性亲属批准而离婚。在实践中，许多沙特妇女发现这些新的权利在父权制社会中很难主张，而且男性仍然可以对女性亲属提出不服从命令的要求。但是沙特政府的改革不仅仅是表面上的。一些神职人员被关进了监狱；其余的人很快就服从了命令。

马萨诸塞州似乎乐于打破宗教禁忌。他的新国家电视频道探讨了同性恋的话题。2017年9月，他解除了对约会软件Tinder的禁令。第二年，麦加的一位伊玛目被拖去在一个新的纸牌游戏比赛中发第一副牌，这是一种迄今为止被谴责为有罪的分心的消遣。他为这个王国带来了许多新的运动：拳击、摔跤、涡轮增压四轮驱动车的怪兽赛车运动，甚至还有潘普洛纳式的奔牛。"他是一个该死的摇滚明星，"一位美国观众说，他在去年年底吉达举行的一级方程式比赛中观看了他的起立鼓掌。

对于外国人来说，利雅得现在已经不那么禁忌了。"我担心我不喝酒会被抓，"一位戒酒的商人告诉我。"另一位参加聚会的人说："这里有可卡因、酒精和妓女，我在南加州都没有见过。"这真是重口味的东西。" 一位前沙特高级官员说，性工作者，许多来自东欧，参加一次聚会可以赚到3000美元，过夜可以赚到10000美元。

当Mbs第一次进入公共生活时，他有一个像他的父亲一样紧缩的声誉，这在王室中是罕见的。这种情况很快就改变了。本文采访的许多人说，他们认为mbs经常吸毒，但他否认了这一点。一位宫廷内幕人士说，2015年，他的朋友们决定他需要在马尔代夫的一个岛上进行一些R&R。据调查记者布拉德利-霍普和贾斯汀-谢克在他们的书《血与油》中说，150名模特被招募参加聚会，然后被 "用高尔夫球车接送到一个医疗中心，接受性传播疾病的检测。" 一些国际音乐明星被空运过来，包括荷兰DJ Afrojack。然后，媒体揭露了MBS的身份。

此后，王子更喜欢在红海沿岸放松自己。在周末，他的随行人员组成一个船队，将他们的游艇停泊在他的Serene游艇周围，该游艇有一个练习场和一个电影院。据一位前官员说，他的朋友们称他为 "DJ MBS"，他将戴着他标志性的牛仔帽旋转光盘。这艘游艇只是Mbs所挥霍的奢侈品之一。他还在凡尔赛附近买了一座价值2.3亿英镑的仿法国城堡，建于2008年（冥想室兼做水族馆）。据说他曾吹嘘说他想成为第一个万亿富翁。

我们把这篇文章中的这些和其他指控交给了MBS的代表。通过沙特驻伦敦大使馆，他们发表了广泛的否认，说 "这些指控被否认，没有根据"。

王子对社会习俗的松动反映了他在沙特和其他地方的许多年轻同龄人的价值观--就像他对生活中更华丽的一面的品味。然而，尽管进行了社会革命，王子并不比瓦哈比教士更热衷于让人们为自己思考。在2018年取消对妇女驾驶的禁令前不久，王子的官员监禁了争取妇女权利运动的领导人之一Loujain al-Hathloul。她的家人说，狱卒对她进行了水刑和电刑，而且在她受折磨时，Mbs最亲密的顾问之一Saud al-Qahtani也在场，并威胁要强奸她（联合国调查发现，有合理理由相信Qahtani参与了对女活动家的酷刑。据称，卡塔尼对其中一名妇女说 "我想对你做什么就做什么，然后我就把你溶化，把你冲进马桶。") 哈特鲁尔被指控煽动改变统治制度。信息很明确：只允许一个人这么做。

姆布斯是个无情的野心家--据说他十几岁时就喜欢读亚历山大大帝的故事--但他的崛起也要归功于一些非凡的命运转折。在沙特阿拉伯，继承可能是一件不可预测的事情。这个君主制国家只有两代人，成立于1932年，到目前为止，王位在创始统治者的儿子中从兄弟间转移到兄弟间。萨勒曼的父亲并不被看好成为国王，但在他的两个哥哥于2011年和2012年意外去世后，他被推上了继承人的行列。


当萨勒曼76岁成为候任继承人时，他需要一个参谋长。大多数朝臣期望他选择他第一任妻子的一个风度翩翩、说英语的孩子。但他却任命了一个讲阿拉伯语、带着一口贝都因口音的儿子。(从那时起，mbs的英语学得很快：当我们在2016年见面时，他有时会纠正他的译员）。

对那些熟悉他父亲的人来说，提升mbs的选择并不那么令人惊讶。萨勒曼一直致力于利雅得省长的工作，而不是追逐更多有利可图的佣金，他坚持早上8点上班，即使在70多岁时也是如此。他是著名的家庭管教者，不反对用他的手杖抽打不听话的王室成员，甚至在他的私人监狱里坐一坐。他显然在他的第六个儿子身上看到了自己的影子。Mbs可能喜欢电子游戏，但他也是一个勤奋的人，热衷于进步。

Mbs对他为实现控制而准备做的事情没有什么限制。他赢得了Abu Rasasa--子弹之父的绰号，因为有广泛的传言说他给一个在土地纠纷中对他作出裁决的官员邮寄了一颗子弹（沙特官员之前否认了这个传言）。他在私下里也是令人生畏的。"有这些可怕的脾气，砸毁办公室，捣毁宫殿，"一位与皇宫有联系的消息人士说。"他非常暴力。" 一些同僚形容他的情绪波动很大。两位前皇宫内部人士说，在与他母亲的争吵中，他曾经用子弹喷射她的天花板。根据多个消息来源和新闻报道，他曾把母亲锁在家里。

一些观察家担心，随着石油储备开始减少，宝库缩小，MBS可能只会变得更加危险

很难说他有多少个妻子；官方说法是只有一个，一个名叫萨拉-宾特-马苏尔的迷人的公主，但朝臣们说他至少还有一个妻子。一位外交官谈到了Mbs对他妻子的善意。但王室内部的其他消息来源说，至少有一次，萨拉公主被她的丈夫打得很惨，以至于她不得不寻求治疗。

我们向Mbs的代表提出了这一指控和本篇文章中的其他指控，他们将其描述为 "纯粹的捏造"，并补充说："不幸的是，王国已经习惯了对其领导层的虚假指控，通常是基于政治（或其他）动机的恶意来源，特别是那些长期有捏造和无根据指控记录的不名誉的人。"

2015年萨勒曼成为国王后，mbs终于尝到了政治权力的滋味。萨勒曼任命他的儿子为副王储和国防部长。Mbs的第一个动作是在邻国也门发动战争。即使是王国最亲密的军事盟友美国也是在最后一刻才被告知。

在穆罕默德-本-纳伊夫的王位之路上有一个明显的障碍：他的表弟，57岁的候任继承人穆罕默德-本-纳伊夫。本-纳伊夫是情报局局长，是王国与中央情报局的主要对话者。他被广泛认为是在9/11之后在沙特消灭了基地组织。2017年6月，本-纳伊夫被召见，在麦加的宫殿里与年迈的国王会面。

接下来发生的故事从新闻报道和我的采访中浮现出来。似乎本-纳伊夫乘坐直升机抵达，乘电梯到了四楼。等待的不是君主，而是MBS的特工。本-纳伊夫被剥夺了他的武器和电话，并被告知一个皇家委员会已将他解雇。他被单独留下来考虑他的选择。七个小时后，一名法庭录像师拍下了本纳伊夫亲吻他的表弟，然后接受他退位为王储的假象。萨勒曼国王在整个过程中一直坐在后面。本-纳伊夫现在被拘留了（他的叔叔也对王位有要求，他显然进行了干预，试图保护本-纳伊夫，但他自己后来被拘留了）。假装辞职--萨达姆-侯赛因的老把戏--将成为Mbs的招牌动作。

这只是热身表演。2017年10月，Mbs在利雅得的丽思卡尔顿酒店举办了一次国际投资会议。在 "沙漠中的达沃斯"，克里斯蒂娜-拉加德、Son Masayoshi和其他商界名流听取了mbs对沙特阿拉伯后石油时代未来的介绍，包括建设价值5000亿美元的新 "智能城市 "Neom。这次活动很受欢迎。关于也门战争或美国安全伙伴穆罕默德-本-纳伊夫的命运的外交埋怨逐渐消失。

这次聚会也是一个邀请经常在国外的王室成员回来的机会。一旦外国人离开，MBS就会扑上来。数百名王子和商人被卷了进去。根据《纽约时报》记者本-哈伯德（Ben Hubbard）关于Mbs的传记，他们中的一个人在到达酒店房间时才意识到有些不对劲：没有笔、剃刀或眼镜--没有任何可用作武器的东西。

MBS将被拘留者在丽思卡尔顿酒店关押了几个星期（万豪酒店和其他酒店也被征用，以安置溢出的人员）。囚犯们的电话被没收了。据说有些人被戴上头罩，被剥夺睡眠并被殴打，直到他们同意转移资金并交出资产清单。总的来说，Mbs在丽思卡尔顿酒店的客人掏出了大约1000亿美元。

即使是以前被认为不可触及的王室成员，如掌管国民警卫队的强大王子，也得到了类似的待遇。沙特阿拉伯第二任国王最年轻的孩子巴斯玛公主被关押了三年，没有受到指控，也没有接触到律师；据她的一位亲信说，获释后她仍然不得不戴着电子脚镣。

打击王室和商业精英的行动被称为是对腐败的打击--毫无疑问，它网罗了许多通过腐败获得的资产，MBS说这些资产将被归还给沙特国库。然而，这些方法看起来更像是黑帮电影里的东西，而不是司法程序。


审讯工作由萨乌德-卡塔尼（Saud al-Qahtani）监督，每当有被拘留者破口大骂并说出他们的银行信息时，他就直接向MBS报告。(这篇文章中有关卡塔尼的所有指控都是通过他的律师向他提出的。没有得到任何回应）。Qahtani已经成为Mbs的心腹之一，尽管在他职业生涯的早期，他曾策划反对萨勒曼和他的儿子，试图用萨勒曼患有痴呆症的谣言来排挤他们。卡塔尼对前一派非常忠诚，他给自己的儿子取了当时老板的名字。据一位前朝臣说，在老国王的葬礼上，两个人发生了争执：马布斯打了卡赫塔尼的脸。后来，Mbs让Qahtani证明自己的价值，并把他带到了自己的手下。卡塔尼正式给他的小儿子取名穆罕默德。

从纸面上看，卡塔尼是一名通讯顾问，他曾是一名记者，了解推特，并利用机器人军队和忠诚的追随者来恐吓社交媒体上的批评者（他的办公室有巨大的屏幕和全息图，工作人员用激光枪进行打靶练习）。在实践中，他被委以重任，承担起沙特最重要和最暴力的任务--那些确立他对权力的控制。

他的职责范围远远超出了沙特的边界。2016年，他绑架了苏尔坦王子，一个对Mbs恶语相向的小皇室成员。Mbs提供了他的飞机，让苏尔坦从巴黎飞往开罗--相反，飞机被改道到了沙特阿拉伯。根据霍普和谢克的书，卡塔尼冒充绍德机长，一个航空公司的飞行员，尽管令人惊讶的是他有一块昂贵的宇舶表。

即使是与政治无关的人，也变得不敢在正常运行的手机附近说话了。

有了这样的引渡策略，再加上现金龙头的关闭，即使是不在丽思卡尔顿酒店内的王室成员也感到了压力，要把自己的炫耀性资产剥离出来。沙特驻英国大使的父亲把他心爱的科茨沃尔德2000英亩的庄园Glympton Park挂牌出售。利雅得的珠宝商做了一笔轰轰烈烈的交易，把较小的王室成员的钻石当掉。"一家拍卖行的顾问说："这就像罗曼诺夫家族出售他们的法贝热彩蛋。

许多平民对他们有权的精英阶层的垮台感到高兴。曾经靠巨额施舍生活的王子和公主们开始寻找工作。他们的头衔变得无关紧要。由于无力承担灌溉费用，他们的绿色牧场又变成了沙漠。银行将他们拒之门外。一位金融顾问回忆说，他对试图以其王室身份获得信贷的王子们做出了回应。"你们自称是王子，但他们说现在只有一个王子。"

丽思卡尔顿酒店事件只是一个非同寻常的中央集权项目的一个因素。他掌管了半自治的国家石油公司Aramco。他让自己成为主权财富基金--公共投资基金的老板。"一位退休的外交官说："他摧毁了所有有权势的家族。到2017年底，沙特的法律、金钱和安全都直接来自他。

在那些失去的人中，有那些多年前在游艇上把年轻的Mbs推到家族照片边缘的王子同僚。阿瓦里德-本-塔拉勒王子，在那张照片的中心，交出了他170亿美元的部分财富。随着洗牌的扩大，Mbs同父异母的长辈把他们的游艇拿出来出售。他的许多表兄弟被关了起来。一位受害者说："回报时间"。

当Mbs在国内压榨精英的时候，他在国外建立了一些重要的友谊。两人都有对弱者的渴望，厌恶他们国家高高在上的决策机构；他们喜欢挑衅。近年来，沙特阿拉伯向美国消费者提供石油，而美国则保证该国的安全，这一历史性的契约已经出现裂缝。巴拉克-奥巴马在2011年匆忙撤出伊拉克，并在2015年与伊朗达成核协议，这让沙特阿拉伯担心它不能再依靠美国的保护。美国开发自己的页岩油储备也减少了其对沙特石油的依赖性。然后，特朗普和沙特得到了亲近。

在特朗普政府的默许（有时是明确）支持下，Mbs开始像对待沙特阿拉伯一样对待整个中东地区，试图把他认为不方便的统治者推到一边。他宣布封锁卡塔尔，一个在沙特阿拉伯东部的天然气丰富的小国。2017年，由于黎巴嫩与伊朗打交道而被激怒，Mbs邀请长期受益于沙特赞助的总理萨阿德-哈里里进行了一次星光灿烂的野营旅行。哈里里出现了，他的手机被没收了，并很快发现自己在电视上宣读了一份辞职演说。

两次行动最终都适得其反。但特朗普的中东顾问，他的女婿贾里德-库什纳，几乎没有阻止这种滑稽行为。他和穆罕默德在WhatsApp上共同构想了一个新的地区秩序，互相称呼对方为 "贾里德 "和 "穆罕默德"。他们的关系非常好，在库什纳的提示下，穆罕默德开始了承认以色列的进程。他的父亲，仍然是正式的国王，阻止了这一切。

2018年3月，Mbs访问了美国，在硅谷与彼得-蒂尔和蒂姆-库克一起玩耍，并会见了一些名人，包括鲁珀特-默多克、詹姆斯-卡梅隆和德维恩-"岩石"-约翰逊。许多人都很想见见这个控制着2300亿美元主权财富基金的人。令他感到沮丧的是，他们不太愿意通过在王国投资来回报他。

那年10月，洲际间的友好关系戛然而止。那个月，我本来要去土耳其参加一个会议。我认识的一位沙特记者贾马尔-卡舒吉(Jamal Khashoggi)与我联系，建议见面：他也要去伊斯坦布尔，去领事馆赴约。卡舒吉是一名法庭内部人士，他在《华盛顿邮报》和其他地方对沙特政府的批评引起了广泛关注。他似乎比平时更努力地保持联系。当我在会议上时，他的一个朋友给我打电话。他说，贾马尔仍然没有从领事馆出来。当我赶到那里时，土耳其警察已经封锁了大楼。

完整的故事很快就在泄露的情报报告中出现了，后来还进行了一次联合调查。据报道，一个与沙特-卡赫塔尼协调的沙特杀手小组已经飞往伊斯坦布尔。当他们等待卡舒吉进入领事馆时，他们讨论了肢解他的尸体的计划。根据土耳其情报部门在领事馆内录制的录音带，卡舒吉被告知："我们要来抓你了。" 有一场搏斗，然后是塑料布被包裹的声音。中情局的一份报告说，MBS批准了这次行动。

MBS说他对这起谋杀案负责，但否认是他的命令。他解雇了卡塔尼和情报报告中涉及的另一名官员。其影响是立竿见影的。公司和演讲者退出了当年的沙漠达沃斯；盖茨基金会终止了与王子设立的艺术和教育慈善机构misk的合作。好莱坞经纪人Ari Emanuel取消了与王国的4亿美元交易。


王子似乎对这种敌意感到真正的惊讶--"失望"，一位同事说。他不是已经承诺了西方所要求的所有改革吗？也许他低估了对一个关系良好的国际人物，而不是对一个在沙特阿拉伯以外不知名的王室成员下手所激起的愤怒。或者说，他比西方政府自己更了解他们的优先事项。当他们打击恐怖主义的伙伴穆罕默德-本-纳伊夫（Muhammad bin Nayef）失踪时，他们没有采取什么行动；他们对丽思卡尔顿酒店的酷刑报告和马布斯对也门的肆意轰炸耸然置之。为什么他们对一个记者被杀有这么多话要说？

卡舒吉遇害三年后，沙漠中的达沃斯会议在歌手格洛丽亚-盖诺的歌声中开幕。当她身后的巨大屏幕上闪现出孩子们微笑的画面时，她唱起了她的迪斯科舞曲 "I Will Survive"，问观众。"你认为我会崩溃吗？你以为我会躺下等死吗？"

私募股权巨头贝莱德(BlackRock)和黑石(Blackstone)的首席执行官回来了，高盛(Goldman Sachs)、SocGen和渣打的负责人也回来了。尽管亚马逊的老板杰夫-贝索斯(Jeff Bezos)拥有《华盛顿邮报》，即雇佣卡舒吉的报纸，但甚至亚马逊也派出了一名代表。与此同时，卡塔尼在王室法庭上重新受到青睐--尽管他被联合国牵连到卡舒吉的谋杀案中，但沙特法庭决定不起诉他。

他在清真寺和王室法庭的特权中爆炸，就像在屏幕上与对手作战一样。

mbs重振了这个几乎处于休眠状态的主权财富基金，向科技、娱乐和体育领域注入了数百亿美元的资金，为沙特创造了一个更柔和、更有吸引力的形象，并吸纳了新伙伴。2020年4月，该基金带领一个财团收购了英超足球队纽卡斯尔联队（该交易耗时18个月）。第二年，它发起了一项大胆的竞标，创建沙特自己的高尔夫巡回赛--LIV系列，希望以2.55亿美元的奖金来吸引球员，远远大于美国的比赛。在今年的首届LIV巡回赛上，一些顶级球员抵制了赛事，其他球员则是为了现金。

事实证明，乔-拜登更难招架。成为总统后不久，拜登就撤回了美国对也门战争的军事支持。他不愿意与MBS交谈，坚持要通过萨勒曼国王进行沟通。他甚至在15个月内没有提名驻利雅得的大使。到处都在谈论沙特-美国的关系处于深度冻结状态。然后，在2022年2月，沙特有了一次运气：俄罗斯入侵了乌克兰。

在战争爆发后的几天里，拜登本人试图打电话给Mbs。这位王储拒绝与总统通话。不过，他确实接了普京的电话。两人的关系已经很密切了。Mbs曾亲自将俄罗斯带入扩大版的欧佩克卡特尔，以使沙特阿拉伯保持对全球石油生产的控制。普京于2018年在布宜诺斯艾利斯举行的20国集团峰会上巩固了这种友谊，这次峰会是在卡舒吉遇害数周后举行的。当西方领导人回避MBS时，普京在坐在沙特统治者身边前与他击掌。

沙特对美国的蔑视似乎已经得到了回报。经过几个月的回避，拜登勉强同意于7月在吉达与Mbs会面，在王子自己的地盘和他自己的条件下。这次访问使马布斯得到了认可，但对重建关系没有什么作用。甚至连增加石油产量的具体保证都没有。

美国外交政策机构中的一些人仍然希望王子能够成为该地区的一个有益的合作伙伴，并指出他最近从与卡塔尔的对抗中退了出来，而且急于从也门找到一个外交出路。他们说，也许他作为一个领导人正在走向成熟。

这似乎很乐观。Mbs在也门的灾难性运动表面上是为了支持该国总统，但在4月，在被召集到一个会议并提供阿拉伯咖啡和日期的几个小时后，也门总统正在电视上宣读辞职演讲。"一位外国分析家说，"他们学到的是，不要谋杀那些经常与美国国会议员一起吃饭的记者。

西方还教会了MBS一些别的东西--全世界的独裁者都可能从中得到安慰。他们会说，不管犯了什么罪，如果你坐立不安，忍受着丑闻和愤怒，最终金融家、名人，甚至西方领导人都会跑回来。36岁的Mbs有时间。一些观察家担心，随着石油储备开始减少和宝库的缩小，他可能会变得更加危险。"当他是一个统治中等收入国家的中年人，并开始感到厌烦时，会发生什么？"一位认识Mbs的外交官问道。"他会不会去做更多的冒险？"

今年早些时候，我在沙特阿拉伯的办公室拜访了一位老朋友。在我们开始交谈之前，他把他的手机放在一个可以阻断信号的袋子里，以防止政府的间谍监听。在中国这样的警察国家，持不同政见者会做这种事，但我在沙特阿拉伯从未见过这种情况。不仅仅是参与政治的人在采取这样的预防措施：大多数沙特人已经开始害怕在正常运行的手机附近说话。人们曾经在办公室、家里和咖啡馆里相当公开地交谈。现在，他们几乎一无所获地被接走。

当我们在他办公室空调的呼啸声中聊天时，我的朋友列举了一份他认识的在过去一个月里被拘留的人的名单：一位死在监狱里的退休空军司令，一位被从办公桌前拖走的医院管理人员，一位在她七个孩子面前被带走的母亲，一位在出狱七天后死亡的律师。"这些人并不是乌合之众，"我的朋友说。"没有人明白为什么。"

政府官方说，它没有政治犯。人权组织估计，成千上万的人被卷入了MBS的大网之中。我从20世纪90年代开始报道中东地区，我想不出有哪个地方有这么多自己的联系人身陷囹圄。

很少有普通的沙特人预料到，当MBS践踏完精英和神职人员后，他下一步会来找他们。将沙特人带入现代、网络化的网络世界，使国家更容易监控他们的言论。一位名叫阿卜杜拉赫曼-萨丹的红新月会雇员曾经用假名经营一个讽刺性的推特账户。2018年，mbs的特工逮捕了他，并将他单独监禁了两年。美国检察官后来指控两名前推特员工涉嫌将各种账户背后的真实姓名交给一名沙特官员--萨德汉的家人认为他的名字也在其中。(对一名员工的审判正在进行；他否认向沙特官员传递信息）。


从表面上看，MBS没有什么可担心的。民意调查--如果可以相信的话--表明他很受欢迎，特别是在年轻的沙特人中。但人们越来越感觉到，不满情绪正在表面下酝酿。Mbs已经打破了与沙特民众的关键社会契约，在减少施舍的同时，免除了在周五祈祷后听取普通人反馈的传统。

不难想象，如果他们有机会，他们会提出一些问题。随着生活成本的上升，许多人正在挣扎。当其他政府在大流行期间缓冲他们的公民时，MBS削减了燃料补贴并将增值税提高了两倍。由于无力承担抽水的费用，一些农民将作物留在田里枯萎。许可证和罚款的费用也急剧上升。尽管马布斯雄辩地谈到了这个国家的年轻人，但他正努力为他们寻找工作。失业率仍然顽固地停留在两位数上。一半的失业者有大学学历，但我在MBS的大型项目中遇到的大多数白领都是外国人。

沙特阿拉伯试图使其经济多样化--从而弥补石油储备的长期下降--也进展不顺利。大流行病推迟了国际旅游业迅速增长的计划。从你的亲戚那里勒索数十亿美元可能不是让投资者相信王国是一个自由的天堂的最好方法。

人们形容MBS的情绪波动非常大。他曾经把一位部长关在厕所里10个小时。

这位年轻的王子甚至推翻了前几任国王在民主方面采取的微小步骤。市政选举已经暂停--作为一种削减成本的做法，软弱无力的媒体解释道。舒拉委员会是一个由150人组成的协商机构，自大流行病发生以来只在网上开过会（其他机构几个月来都是亲自开会）。"我希望我有更多的发言权，"一位成员说。每当我提到王子，他的腿就会抽搐。

一位经常访问王室的人说，Mbs现在给人的印象是，他总是认为人们在密谋对付他。他似乎对忠诚度斤斤计较。他在关键岗位上要么用年轻的王室成员，要么用没有本地基础的外国人来威胁他，要么用他已经打垮的人。一位政府部长易卜拉欣-阿萨夫是被关在丽思卡尔顿酒店的人之一--两个月后，MBS派他作为代表参加了世界经济论坛。他的一个建筑项目的高级主管是说他在他的一个监狱里受到了折磨。"他从被赤身裸体地吊在脚踝上，被殴打，被剥夺了所有的资产，变成了一个高级项目经理，"这个人的一个熟人说。

所有的人都仍然容易受到mbs的脾气的影响。沙特消息人士说，他曾经把一位部长关在厕所里10个小时。(该部长后来出现在电视上，对王子的智慧喋喋不休地发表陈词滥调）。与我交谈过的一位高级官员说他想退出。"一位内部人士说："他圈子里的每个人都对他感到恐惧。这可能会使他难以有效地管理一个拥有3500万人口的国家。前朝臣说，没有一个接近马布斯的人准备对他日益宏大的计划是否可行提供真实的评估。"一个人说，"说不 "是他们永远不会做的事情。

如果Mbs除了扩展他的权力之外还有其他使命，你可能会期望在Neom找到它，他承诺在沙漠中建造的城市。他在2017年说，Neom将不亚于 "人类的一次文明飞跃"。令人头疼的细节随之而来。这座城市的食物将生长在浮动结构的水培墙上。它将由世界上最大的绿色氢气工厂提供动力。数以千计的吹雪机将在附近的山上建立一个滑雪场。有一天，它将拥有无人驾驶汽车和无人机乘客。

根据官方的时间表，主城区将在2020年完成。其他地区将在2025年之前增加。王子的旅游部长艾哈迈德-哈提卜（Ahmed al-Khateeb）驳斥了关于该时间表被证明过于雄心勃勃的传言。"他敦促说："用你的眼睛而不是用你的耳朵来看。于是我去了。

找到Neom是第一个问题。没有任何路标。经过三个小时的车程，我们来到了地图上指示的地点。那里光秃秃的，只有零星的无花果树。骆驼在空旷的公路上漫步。道路两旁堆满了瓦砾，这是为了给这个强大的大都市让路而推平的小镇的残余部分。

指定区域几乎有比利时那么大。据我所知，只有两个项目已经完成，即Mbs的宫殿，以及谷歌地球称之为 "Neom体验中心 "的东西（当我开车去看它时，它被一个预制的小屋遮住了）。我唯一能看到的其他实体建筑是在Neom构思之前建造的一家酒店：皇家郁金香酒店。大厅里的一张海报敦促我去 "发现Neom"。但当我要求提供导游时，酒店经理用阿拉伯语的粗话骂我妹妹，并试图把我赶走。没有看到Neom网站所承诺的具有 "无摩擦促进"、"先进基础设施 "和 "协作生态系统 "的媒体中心。Neom的通信和媒体负责人韦恩-博格说他 "目前不在王国"。

酒店的餐厅里挤满了顾问--我遇到的都是外国人。(后来我找到了一位沙特项目经理）。"我们认为我们就要开始工作了，但每两个月顾问们就会提出一个新的计划，"他告诉我。"他们仍然在做计划的计划。"） 这些外国人中存在一种狂热的短期行为。许多人的月薪是40,000美元，外加丰厚的奖金。"这就像骑牛一样，"Neom的一位顾问告诉我。"你知道你会摔倒，没有人能在公牛身上坚持超过一分半钟或两分钟，所以你要充分利用它。"

尽管工资很高，但有报道称，外国人正在离开Neom项目，因为他们发现期望和现实之间的差距是如此的紧张。据他的朋友说，Neom的负责人对缺乏进展感到 "很害怕"。

最后，我找到了一位退休的沙特空军技术员，他愿意以600美元的价格载我在城里转转。他把我带到一个矗立在沙漠中的雕塑前，上面写着 "我❤尼奥姆"。再往前走不远，我们发现了一片新的柏油路面，据说这标志着梦想之城的边缘。越过它，孤独而平坦的沙地延伸到很远的地方。

尼古拉斯-佩勒姆是《经济学人》杂志的中东记者。