Ben Hubbard March 19, 2020 I Want You to Know That Saudi Arabia Has Not Always Been As It Is Now

Saudi Arabia’s Oil Price War & the Rise of Mohammed bin Salman | Ben Hubbard March 19, 2020 I want you to know that Saudi Arabia has not always been as it is now. We Saudis deserve better. — Jamal Khashoggi INTRODUCTION Ben Hubbard is the Beirut bureau chief for The New York Times. An Arabic speaker with more than a decade in the Middle East, he has covered coups, civil wars, protests, jihadist groups, rotten fish as cuisine, religion and pop culture from more than a dozen countries, including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Yemen. His first book is MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman. Before becoming a journalist, Mr. Hubbard studied history in Chicago, Arabic in Cairo and journalism in Berkeley, and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, West Africa. A Colorado native, he lives in Beirut with his wife. WHY DO I CARE? According to Ben Hubbard, when King Salman of Saudi Arabia ascended to the throne in January 2015 and began bestowing enormous powers on his 29-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman, it sent minds reeling. Given Saudi Arabia’s importance as the wealthiest country in the Middle East and a key partner of the West, foreign officials, journalists, experts, and spies had long scrutinized the Saudi royal family to anticipate who might come to power in the future—and MBS, as he was known, had remained far off the radar. Who, they wondered, was this inexperienced young prince who swiftly asserted his control over the kingdom’s oil, military, finances, and domestic and foreign policy? And could he be trusted? In his new book, Ben Hubbard closely tracks MBS’s trajectory to shed light on the man and the critical country he controls. He explores Saudi Arabia’s closed and opaque society and tracks Mohammad bin Salman from his earliest days in power. With vows to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from oil, loosen its strict Islamic social codes, and champion the fight against extremism, the young prince won admirers on Wall Street and in Washington,

1 Silicon Valley, and Hollywood with his grand The kingdom had never been a democracy — visions for a new Saudi Arabia and a reordered more of a soft-gloved autocracy, where citizens Middle East. In 2017, Saudi Arabia made global kept up appearances in public but could mostly headlines by announcing that it would lift its say what they liked in private. But as Prince long-time ban on women driving and hosting a Mohammed rose, the limited margins for free lavish “Davos in the Desert” conference, where expression shrank. — Ben Hubbard MBS wowed international financiers with plans for a new $500 billion city that he said would be powered by sustainable energy and staffed by robots—serving as “a roadmap for the future of civilization.” However, Hubbard’s reporting from a half-dozen countries and hundreds of interviews with a range of sources reveals that a harsher reality was building quietly behind the hype. To secure his path to the throne and quash opposition to his plans, the young prince empowered a covert team to silence critics at home and abroad while deploying new technologies to consolidate his authoritarian rule. He soon made headlines again, for forcing the resignation of the prime minister of Lebanon; locking hundreds of princes, businessmen, and government officials in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton on allegations of corruption; for the hacking by Saudi operatives of cell phones of Saudi dissidents, journalists (including a suspected From the regime’s point of view…if there are attempt on Hubbard himself), and others who only a few thousand accounts driving the supported views critical of the Saudi regime; and discourse, you can just buy or threaten the most infamously for his links to the operatives who activists, and that significantly shapes the killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the conversation. — Alexei Abrahams, research Saudi consulate in Istanbul. fellow at Citizen Lab

MBS, Saudi Arabia, & the Context of his Rise to Power — You write that “M.B.S.’s rise rode the waves of global trends,” and that “as more of the world’s wealth was concentrated in fewer hands, populist authoritarians used nationalist rhetoric to rally their people while shutting down outlets for opposition.” Q: What is the larger context of MBS’s rise to power and prominence in the Kingdom? Q: On balance, is MBS’ rise a good thing or bad thing for Saudi Arabians and the world?

2 MBS Origins — Q: Where did MBS come from? Q: What is his origin story? Q: What can you tell us about his rise to power? MBS as Defense Minister — In March 2015, barely two months after he took over the Defense Ministry, M.B.S. ordered the until then mostly decorative Saudi Air Force to start bombing Yemen, which was in the midst of a civil war. Q: What is the reason for the War in Yemen and what was MBS’ rational for entering the conflict? Q: What has been the cost and verdict of the War in Yemen? Iran vs. Saudi Arabia — Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been at odds with one another. Q: The general view is that Saudi Arabia is first and foremost committed to preventing Iran from becoming a regional hegemon, but does MBS have grander visions for Saudi Arabia’s role as Arab leader in the region? Q: How does his vison compare to those of Iran’s leadership or Turkey’s Erdoğan? Israel & Saudi Arabia — Through intermediaries, M.B.S. courted Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, a contemporary of the young prince who had been given the difficult Middle East portfolio. Kushner knew virtually nothing about the region apart from what he had learned over the years from the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close family friend. M.B.S. offered to explain things. His money and connections and his vision could solve every problem, it seemed, and he was quick to say that Israel was not his enemy — Iran was. Plus, there was money, money, money on the table. Q: How has Saudi Arabia’s relationship to Israel changed under the current crown prince? Q: How strong is this US- Israeli-Saudi diplomatic triangle and who are the key players who are behind it? Qatar — In the spring of 2017, when M.B.S. became the official heir apparent to the Saudi throne, his operations to consolidate personal power went into high gear. He broke relations with the neighboring emirate of Qatar, claiming it supported terrorists and was too cozy with Iran, and demanded that it shut down the contentious Al Jazeera television network. Trump initially backed the play until he was told more than 10,000 U.S. troops use Qatar as a vital regional base. Al Jazeera is still on the air. Q: How have relations with Qatar changed under MBS and what are the objectives of the Saudi’s in this case? Q: Where does the United States stand on the matter?

3 2017–19 Saudi Arabian Purge at the Ritz — In what has since been described as a stunning operation, M.B.S. imprisoned hundreds of the kingdom’s richest and most influential men in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton, beginning in early November 2017, forcing them to sign over to the government — his government — tens of billions of dollars’ worth of assets he claimed were ill- gotten gains. Despite the opulent surroundings of their “prison,” many of those held at the Ritz-Carlton suffered real abuse, according to Hubbard. Q: Can you give us the back-story on the now infamous imprisonment of more than 30 of the Kingdom’s most senior figures under the guise of fighting corruption? Q: What was this really about? 2017 Lebanon–Saudi Arabia dispute — At about the same time as the anti-corruption crack- down was going on, the crown prince invited Saad Hariri, the prime minister of Lebanon, to Riyadh, where he was put under arrest and forced to announce his resignation. Under duress Hariri appeared on television denouncing the role Iran and its client militia Hezbollah played in his country, which was a good way to start a new civil war there. Hubbard writes that is exactly what M.B.S. wanted: “Gradually, the details of the Saudi plot came out. They were crazier than anyone expected.” The Saudis apparently believed troops from Hezbollah were fighting against them and their clients in Yemen, and if there was civil war in Lebanon, they’d have to return home. In the end, virtually nobody accepted that Hariri had resigned in good faith, but it took an intervention by the French president Emmanuel Macron to extract him from Riyadh. Q: What can you tell us about this crazy story where the prime minister of Lebanon (a sovereign country) was effectively kidnapped and forced to deliver a statement provided to him by Riyadh denouncing Hezbollah’s role in Lebanon? Q: Is this part of a larger proxy-war between Iran and Saudi Arabia?

4 Stripping the Religious Police — In April 2016, the religious police suddenly were stripped of their powers. “With a single royal decree,” Hubbard writes, “M.B.S. had defanged the clerics, clearing the way for vast changes they most certainly would have opposed.” Q: What was this about? Women Drivers — M.B.S. eventually allowed women in the kingdom to drive cars, ending a prohibition that activists had campaigned against since he was a preschooler. But he also threw in jail and tortured some of the women who had fought so long and hard for that right. The message was that good things came from the palace, and only from the palace. Q: What does this incident tell us about MBS, that he at once allowed women in the kingdom to drive but simultaneously threw in jail and tortured some of the same women who had fought so long and hard for that same right? Saud al-Qahtani — Q: Where did Saudi al-Qahtani come from and what is his background? Q: How does the story of Saud al-Qahtani’s unlikely rise and precipitous fall serve as a case study in how authoritarian leaders around the globe are turning to the growing international market for commercial spyware to cow their subjects and consolidate power? Q: How does it shed light on Prince Mohammed’s dangerous combination of sweeping ambition and ruthless impunity? Q: Where is Saud al-Qahtani today? Commercial Spyware Industry — Over the last decade, the commercial spyware market has boomed, experts say. The companies say they market only to governments to fight terrorism and crime and follow strict protocols to ensure the correct use of their products. But critics argue that commercial spyware has been a boon for authoritarian rulers, who use it to spy on citizens, journalists, political rivals and nonviolent dissidents, and the proliferation of hacking technologies has led to a spike in reports of their use across the globe, from Mexico to Ethiopia to Tibet. They

5 have proved to be especially popular in the Middle East where such products are being used by Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries — most of them not known for their tolerance of critical views. Q: What can you tell us about the market for commercial spyware and how liberally it is used by governments around the world (particularly authoritarian ones) for purposes unrelated to stopping terrorism or for investigating/preventing crimes? Q: What do we know about the Jeff Bezos case? Q: Is it true that the Kingdom also tried to hack your phone? Twitter Mole — According to Western intelligence officials, a Twitter employee by the name of Ali Alzabarah, was hired by the Kingdom to spy on the accounts of dissidents and others. Alzabarah had joined Twitter in 2013 and had risen through the ranks to an engineering position that gave him access to the personal information and account activity of Twitter’s users, including phone numbers and I.P. addresses, unique identifiers for devices connected to the internet. Twitter could not evidence that he had handed over company data to the Saudi government, but executives nonetheless fired him in December 2015. Q: How unusual is something like this? Social Media Fire — Q: What is it like for people like Jamal Khashoggi who find themselves in the digital crosshairs of an angry regime? (“The mornings were the worst for him because he would wake up to the equivalent of sustained gunfire online,” according to a friend of Khashoggi’s) Q: What was the #The_Black_List? Insecure Mandate — Q: How much of Saudi Arabia’s sometimes ruthless image-making campaign a byproduct of the kingdom’s increasingly fragile position internationally? Q: Is this also a feature of authoritarian regimes that they are insecure about their image and expend tremendous energy trying to shape it? Magnitsky Act — Q: How important has the Magnitsky Act been in punishing authoritarian governments by going after individuals close to these regimes? (blocking any property or interests in property of Saud al-Qahtani and prohibiting him from entering the United States) Uncertain Economic Future — Q: How uncertain is the Kingdom’s economic future as oil prices have fallen and competition among energy suppliers has grown?

6 Saudi Oil Price War — Saudi Arabia continues to signal to the market that it is not backing down from the oil price war despite the crumbling oil prices amid coronavirus-hit demand and promises of huge extra supply next month. Oil giant Saudi Aramco will proceed with the reduction of its refinery rates in Saudi Arabia in April and May in order to free up more crude oil for exports, an official at the company told Reuters on Thursday. Saudi Arabia will continue to supply a record 12.3 million barrels per day (bpd) to the oil market in the coming months, as per order from the energy ministry, the official Saudi Press Agency reported on Wednesday. The Kingdom is intent on unleashing growing crude oil volumes on the market, aiming to significantly boost its crude oil exports to a record-breaking more than 10 million bpd in May. Q: What is the backstory to Saudi Arabia’s decision to break off negotiations with Russia and flood the market with oil? Saudi Finances — At the end of 2019, total expenditures were projected at 1.02 trillion riyals ($272.00 billion) with a budget deficit forecast at 187 billion riyals or 6.4% of GDP. Q: What is the state of the Kingdom’s finances and how does this current oil war impact them? Q: How does this compare to the last time Saudi Arabia faced a protracted price decline in oil in 2014-2015? Q: What is the state of the country’s FOREX reserves? (more FOREX) Saving US Shale — The Trump administration is considering intervening in the Saudi-Russian oil- price war, and Texas regulators are weighing whether to curtail crude production for the first time in decades, as U.S. producers suffer from a historic crash in prices. Officials in the administration

7 are exploring a diplomatic push to get the Saudis to cut oil production, combined with threats of sanctions on Russia aimed at stabilizing prices. The U.S. would ask the Saudis to return to their original, lower production levels before that decision, and would use the threat of sanctions on Russia as part of its engagement with Saudi Arabia to assure the kingdom that Russia won’t easily benefit from Saudi cutbacks. Like the Obama administration before it however, the Trump White House has shied away from targeting Russian oil exports out of concern doing so could escalate diplomatic tensions that have simmered at levels not seen since the Cold War. While U.S. benchmark crude prices rebounded Thursday, just one day after a plunge that was the second- largest one-day decline since 1991, the rebound still put prices at just $25.22 a barrel, near a 20- year low. Coronavirus & Middle East — Q: How is coronavirus impacting the Kingdom and the rest of the Middle East? Q: How big a deal is it that Saudi Arabia has suspended the holding of daily prayers and the weekly Friday prayers inside and outside the walls of the mosques at Mecca and Medina to limit the spread of the virus? *** Iran said Friday that coronavirus has killed 149 more people in the Islamic republic, raising the country’s official death toll from the disease to 1,433, according to AFP. Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi said 1,237 more cases have been confirmed over the past 24 hours and 19,644 people are now known to have been infected in Iran, one of the world’s worst-hit countries. The latest figures come as Iranians celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year which ushers in a two-week holiday during which Iran’s roads are normally filled with people visiting family. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said it is going to suspend all domestic flights, buses, taxis and trains for 14 days amid the coronavirus outbreak, an Interior Ministry official told the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

8