Former ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the Biden administration, Michael Ratney, made this argument in Wall Street Journal recently that the investment in sports was not really aimed at improving MBS's image in the West, but at making Saudi Arabia a more normal country. It seemed a little far-fetched to me. But you seem to be saying that, regardless of the motives, paying comedians to come to Riyadh or spending on American sports leagues have failed as image-improving strategies and are somewhat different from improving Saudi Arabia's relations with Washington.
Sports expenses may vary. I think the Crown Prince is a sports fan and is very interested in global sports, both e-sports and regular sports. And he thought it was a good investment. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. I think LIV Golf may not be a good investment, but it was more than just a PR stunt. He thought of it as a way to make money in the long run and make Saudi Arabia a more normal place. Some sports investments have fared better than others. The investment in Newcastle in the Premier League looks pretty good. I believe Formula 1, which they run locally, brings in some tourism, although I haven't seen any figures on that. So an entire sports campaign can consist of several things. But if it was primarily aimed at improving public opinion of Saudi Arabia in the United States, then it was money wasted. I don't think this has affected the overall negative opinion of most Americans about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
It sounds like you're describing Biden's relationship with Saudi Arabia as being tied to these larger economic factors. Dare I say that the Trump administration's adoption of MBS may have something to do with more personal economic issues, that Trump didn't care at all about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and was annoyed by all the talk about punishing Saudi Arabia in his first term? And how do you now understand Trump's relationship with MBS?
I don't think this is any different from President Trump's first term. Willie Sutton robbed banks for the same reason. Because that's where the money is. I think President Trump, even more stridently in his second term, believes that the difference between his own economic interests and the economic interests of the country is essentially inseparable. And this is unpleasant for me as an American citizen, but the Saudis certainly understand this because all these monarchies in the Gulf region have always been a combination of business interests and political interests, whether it was oil or, in the pre-oil period, money from pearling. All of these ruling families were part of the business environment in their countries. So in many ways, Saudi Arabia views the Trump administration as the first American government that it truly understands, as it is no different from how they view the intersection of politics and business. When Trump appointed Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, as Saudi Arabia's chief negotiator in his first term, I'm sure the Saudis understood this.
It is generally accepted that MBS wants to transform the country from a kind of strange religious dictatorship into a more commonplace, repressive dictatorship. Do you think this is how we should understand what he was trying to do? I continue to think that the best evidence for this is that he has weakened some of the laws restricting women's rights in Saudi Arabia, while at the same time throwing women's rights advocates in jail because he is a dictator who wants political control.
The word that best describes what he wants is the one he used, which is that he wants Saudi Arabia to be normal country. In terms of the political system, he wants it to be a normal authoritarian country, i.e. a place where people can enjoy some degree of social freedom. And in this respect, he really changed the country dramatically. I'm not just talking about women's driving rights and women's rights, but also the availability of public entertainment, the mixing of genders in public places and women's access to employment opportunities in the public sphere. He thinks of this country as a more normal country, and I think most Americans would probably think of it as a more normal country, but he has absolutely no desire to change the political system. In fact, he wants to re-centralize power not only in the ruling family, but also in his own family.
It was a big change. For decades, Saudi Arabia was essentially run as a system of committees, a committee of senior princes who had to sign off on all major events, and it had all the disadvantages of committees. It was boring and didn't take advantage of the opportunities. But the committees also had a virtue: they didn’t do anything particularly stupid. He changed that committee system to an individual system, so sometimes they do stupid things, and he did a number of stupid things early in the period when he was the main decision-maker, including the war in Yemen, the blockade of Qatar that was supposed to end support for Islamist groups, and the kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister. It was a failed attempt to create a crisis in Lebanon, which MBS believed would harm Hezbollah, but in fact harmed Hezbollah's opponents, such as Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri himself. And the murder of Jamal Khashoggi too. There is some lesson to be learned from this. He has been much more cautious in the foreign policy arena, and I think that with the consolidation of power, he is not going to give it up for the sake of some kind of democratic reforms.
In this sense, this is a good time for him, because he will not have to give many lectures on democratic reforms.
No from this Administration. Of course, he will not give any lectures. I think this trip is a kind of personal triumph for him. If he had arrived five years ago, no one would have talked to him.
You mentioned his foreign policy, and in the early years he seemed to interfere in Lebanon, Yemen and Qatar, and also had a very aggressive stance towards the Iranians. How do you assess the situation in the region now and what do you think about how he dealt with the Gaza Strip? It seems to me that he would probably like to make some kind of deal with Israel, but knows that he cannot get very far ahead of the Saudi population, who I believe are unhappy with Israel's behavior in the Gaza Strip.
