Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, greets Qatari Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Al Ula, Saudi Arabia, on January 5th.
Photographer: Anadolu / Getty Images Agency
Photographer: Anadolu / Getty Images Agency
On a day when Saudi Arabia shook the oil market with a reduction in production, calling it a “gesture of goodwill”, the de facto ruler of the kingdom took center stage in a mirror concert hall, ready to solve a another crisis.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has presided over the break with Qatar for more than three years. But it was only two weeks before a new American leader took office, and President-elect Joe Biden had promised to treat Saudi Arabia as an “outcast.” Combined with threats from Iran and a weakened economy, the prince’s calculation had changed: reconciliation looked better than conflict.
The Arab Gulf states agree to re-establish ties with Qatar in a US-backed agreement
So on Tuesday, as television cameras rolled in the northwestern city of Al Ula, Prince Mohammed hugged the Qatari leader and ended the division, throwing himself like a peacemaker. A few hours later, Saudi Arabia announced it would cut oil production by a million barrels a day to boost prices for fellow producers – a directive the energy minister said came directly from the crown prince and which caused the shares of American energy companies to increase.
Through those moves, Prince Mohammed emphasized his public presence in a conciliatory tone – at least for now. Since the 35-year-old prince came to power in 2015, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil has entered into a number of projects with an uncharacteristic risk: a war in Yemen, a partial severance of ties with Canada, a bitter oil price war with Russia, and flirting with a trade war with Turkey.
The new approach
A Gulf diplomat, who asked not to be named while discussing Saudi domestic policy, described Prince Mohammed as trying to pull two levers of influence at the same time. With one, he gets whatever gains he can get from the Donald Trump administration. This was done by appealing to the desire of Special Adviser Jared Kushner, who attended the summit, to project himself as a peacemaker. With another lever, he positions himself as a leader that Biden cannot afford to alienate or ignore, especially by looking constructive.
“This is an effort to take a leadership role, to try to gain some diplomatic advantage with the new Biden administration and a realization that the last four years have probably allowed too much adventurism in foreign policy,” said Karen Young. , a resident scientist at American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC
Trump has been close to Saudi Arabia, making his first trip abroad as president there, leading a hard line against his enemy Iran and protecting Prince Mohammed from the 2018 assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul.
Costly conflicts
However, not only Biden is leading the new tone – however, the terrain that Prince Mohammed is treading has changed. His plan to diversify the economy and get rid of oil is facing major setbacks, and the kingdom’s reputation has sunk after a series of scandals. The coronavirus pandemic has increased the urgency of challenges at home.
“Back to Square One:” Saudi Arabia’s double crisis hits home
For most of last year, Prince Mohammed took a step back from the public sphere and took refuge on the Red Sea coast of Neom, one of his signed futuristic megaprojects. Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan and King Salman – Prince Mohammed’s father – addressed the country, warning citizens of hard times.
At Tuesday’s summit, King Salman was absent, and Prince Mohammed was the star. The set reflected the prince’s ambitions, highlighting his plan to turn Al Ula into a world. touristic destination. After the meetings, he took the Qatari Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad on a tour. They rode in a white Lexus, with Prince Mohammed at the wheel.
The image would have been inconceivable a few years ago, when the prince’s closest advisers regularly despised Qatar. Saudi Arabia and its allies have accused the rich Gulf state of meddling in their internal affairs, supporting extremism and using its influential media channels as weapons of propaganda against neighbors, which Doha denies.
Donald Trump and Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud left on the second day of the G20 Summit at the INTEX Osaka Exhibition Center in Osaka, Japan, in 2019.
Source: Anadolu Agency / Getty Images
Global influence
Regional dynamics have been instrumental in determining ties, including Saudi Arabia’s desire to focus on Iran, said Hesham Alghannam, a political scientist and senior researcher at the Gulf Research Center. Biden said he would try to join the nuclear deal with Iran that Trump abandoned, an action viewed with horror by Saudi Arabia, which also provided an additional incentive to mend ties with Arab neighbors.
“Saudi wants to be the arbiter of disagreement between the Gulf states, instead of being part of these conflicts,” Alghannam said.
From the archives: a quick analysis of the origins of the Saudi-Qatar Rift
The reduction in production was another demonstration of the regional and global influence of the kingdom. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, an older stepbrother of the Crown Prince, said he looked like Saudi Arabiaa leadership the world of oil and helping others suffering from lower oil prices, including Iraq.
But even that move highlighted a shift in Saudi Arabia’s oil policy under King Salman and Prince Mohammed. After decades of boasting about putting oil above politics, the royal palace has become more interventionist, and its energy cars have become more politicized.
To this end, Prince Abdulaziz described reducing production as a “political, sovereign” step, rather than a “technical” one. It will also be expensive. At current prices, it will cost the kingdom $ 3 billion a month in lost oil revenues, according to Bloomberg News, although the actual figure could reach smaller.
But its global impact was immediate. Crude oil prices rose to a 10-month high of more than $ 50 a barrel. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is allowing Russia to increase production, first and less than a year after their price war. It is another sign that the kingdom is not looking for confrontation yet.
– With the assistance of Vivian Nereim, Farah Elbahrawy and Abeer Abu Omar