Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has long angled to play a leading role on the world stage, was at the diplomatic center this week of two of the globe’s most pressing crises.
On Monday, Prince Mohammed met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to discuss both the future of Gaza and the Ukraine war. The following day in Riyadh, there were friendly talks between Russia and the United States.
And on Friday, the kingdom is expected to host Arab officials to plan for the reconstruction of Gaza.
That Saudi Arabia is the setting for talks with such monumental stakes stands as further evidence that the crown prince — known by his initials M.B.S. — is well on his way to achieving his goal of becoming a global power player.
The meetings represent a remarkable turnabout for Prince Mohammed, the oil-rich Gulf kingdom’s de facto leader who was shunned for a time in diplomatic circles. He was accused of severe human rights abuses that he has denied, including approving the killing in 2018 of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident.
Here is what to know about the crown prince’s past actions and his plans for Saudi Arabia.
A new vision for the kingdom
In 2016, about a year after his father, King Salman, ascended the throne, Prince Mohammed, then a deputy crown prince, introduced Vision 2030. The bold plan aimed to diversify the kingdom’s economy and make it less reliant on oil. It included increasing the number of Saudis in private employment, including women; soliciting foreign investment; and selling shares of Saudi Aramco, the state oil monopoly, to raise capital to invest in other sectors, like tourism.
That blueprint helped M.B.S. clinch his role as crown prince and heir apparent to the throne.
As part of that pitch, the prince spoke of a “moderate, balanced Islam that is open to the world and to all religions and all traditions and peoples.”
Roundup of rivals
That initial 2017 investment conference was at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, a venue to which some attendees soon returned under very different circumstances.
Hundreds of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest and most powerful men, including a number of M.B.S.’s royal relatives, were rounded up and held at the hotel.
The government said it was cracking down on corruption. M.B.S. was named to head the committee leading the investigations. Critics said he had orchestrated the detentions to consolidate his power. To secure their release, many detainees surrendered huge sums of money and gave the government control of their companies.
The crown prince called it “ludicrous” at the time to suggest the campaign was a power grab, saying it was essential to rooting out corruption and bolstering foreign investors’ trust.
Foreign fights
It is not only within the kingdom’s borders that the prince has used coercion and force.
His attempts to minimize Iran’s regional influence by confronting its armed proxy groups, including the Houthi militia in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, have at times backfired.
In 2015, when the prince was defense minister, Saudi Arabia led a coalition in a war against Houthi forces in Yemen. The effort did not root out the Houthis, many Yemeni civilians died, and by 2018, Saudi Arabia was bogged down in a bloody stalemate and accused internationally of “starving” Yemen.
In a bizarre incident in 2017, Saudi Arabia tried to quell the influence of Hezbollah in Lebanon by orchestrating the resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister at the time, Saad Hariri, and having him publicly blame Iran. The move was designed to turn the Lebanese against Hezbollah and Iranian meddling.
Mr. Hariri, a Saudi ally and Hezbollah opponent, was summoned to the kingdom, where, after intense pressure and rough treatment, he resigned as instructed, reading a speech on Saudi TV. Mr. Hariri was allowed to returned home weeks later to retake his office. Rather than tamping down Hezbollah’s influence, the militant group’s power only grew in the wake of what became an international scandal.
A high-profile killing
American intelligence sources have concluded that Prince Mohammed approved the assassination in 2018 of Mr. Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident and Washington Post journalist, at the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul. M.B.S. was reviled in much of the world over the killing, but President Trump remained his close ally during his first administration.
Campaigning in 2020, Joseph R. Biden Jr. vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the killing. In 2021, his administration released a report concluding that elite operatives executed the killing at M.B.S.’s behest. The Saudi government blasted the report and said it had “clearly denounced this heinous crime.”
For a time, Mr. Biden shunned the crown prince.
But in 2022, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine affecting oil prices and Iran believed to be expanding its nuclear capabilities, Mr. Biden smoothed over relations. The two met in Riyadh, and the meeting gave M.B.S. a measure of the international rehabilitation he sought.
Alliance of deal makers
Mr. Trump in 2018 praised the crown prince as a “truly spectacular ally,” even after the C.I.A. concluded that the royal had ordered Mr. Khashoggi’s assassination. The president singled out Prince Mohammed as his preferred partner in the Middle East, and he became central to the administration’s regional strategy.
Saudi Arabia has also been a prolific buyer of American weapons.
Mr. Trump’s ties to Saudi Arabia extend beyond official government business to a range of family business ventures, mostly real estate branding deals that bring in fees for use of the Trump name.
Regional goals
Mr. Trump has touted the 2020 Abraham Accords, establishing official ties between Israel and four Arab states (the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan), as one of the crowning foreign policy achievements of his first term, and one he intends to build upon during this term. Getting Saudi Arabia to sign on would be a major achievement.
But Mr. Trump this month antagonized Arab nations by proposing that the Gaza Strip could be taken over by the United States to build a “Riviera,” while Palestinians would be displaced to live in Egypt, Jordan and other nations. Saudi Arabia immediately dismissed the notion and said it still insists that a Palestinian state be established before it normalizes relations with Israel.
In Riyadh on Friday, representatives of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will work on a plan for Gaza’s reconstruction, partly funded by Arab countries, that preserves the possibility of a Palestinian state.
Global mediator
Saudi Arabia has increasingly played the role of mediator in the Russia-Ukraine war, maintaining that it does not seek to take sides. The kingdom has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine while cultivating close ties with Russia.
By hosting Russian and American officials for talks about the war this week, the kingdom upset Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who postponed a planned visit to Riyadh this week.
But the meeting positioned the crown prince as a key intermediary able to bring powerful nations to the table and solidified his status as a leader influential beyond the Middle East.
