Drilling Deep: Karen House on Saudi Arabia Under Mohammed bin Salman

Salman and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia. Of course, Saudi Arabia, as Americans are being reminded these days, is not the only increasingly authoritarian nation reliant on oil extraction, determined to disrupt global climate negotiations, or obsessed with energy ravenous Ai. But as Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and former Wall Street Journal publisher House makes clear, it is a crucial one.

House has been traveling to Saudi Arabia for more than four decades and has borne witnessed both its power and its contradictions. She spent hours interviewing the Crown Prince and other Saudi officials for this book. But House also has quote a number of personal friends who have literally disappeared

without any official explanation. She writes in June, Adam Lowenstein spoke with House about how Saudi Arabia has changed under the Crown Prince, whether MBS is gamble on economic and social freedoms alongside civil and political repression, is politically or environmentally sustainable, how Saudi Arabia's oil and petrochemical industries serve its geopolitical interests, and why the kingdom's promises about transitioning away from fossil fuels might be a bit less green

than climate advocates would hope. Conversation is coming up after this quick break.

I hoped was an interview. It turned out to be a dinner party, and so there were women all dressed and bejeweled and alcohol, and we watched the World Cup soccer final on you know, satellite TV. It was a very It was the kind of event that the religious

police deplored. And shortly thereafter after the attack on the mccamosque, of course, that kind of thing disappeared in Saudi Arabia and men and women were segregated and all of the stuff that you know that people know for most of the last forty years, until King Settleman and his son took over and took the religious police off the street. Let women drive, let women work, are trying to modernize and change the economy and the culture.

to do business with the kingdom. And so I had a hard time understanding what is real and what is not. But one of the main arguments of your book is that, at least in terms of social and economic freedom, this transition is real and legit and consequential. Can you talk about that a little bit? Just how much the country has changed over let's say the last decade or so.

He was a young kid who you know, the only thing he could do was play video games because there was no other entertainment, which is true, there was nothing really except kids could kick a soccer ball around in a field of garbage here and there in town he has. He is motivated. He understands that they can't live off of oil revenue forever and that people have to be motivated and educated to work. So he is determined to

bring more resources into the world of work. And women are a major educated resource, and they're much more motivated than most men because they haven't had the opportunity to do anything other really than to teach school. There are a few doctors here and there, but the only career that was sanctioned for women really was breeding children or teaching children. And he is not He has obviously set

back political freedom. In the days when I went there under King Fahd, under King Abdullah, you weren't ever supposed to criticize the king. But in the newspapers, you know, you could read the health ministry failed at this, the defense ministry failed that. I mean, you know, mild criticism, and you didn't wind up in in prison. And I think, you know, he feels that I'm doing these things fast. I can't. I don't have time to have everybody telling me how to do it and getting in the way.

So and I think, you know, he thinks he he thinks he knows what to do. His whole philosophy is that what's wrong with the world is incremental thinking. You have to have out of the box thinking, and that that's something. As you noticed in the last chapter of the book leak On, you also had that the Singaporean Prime Minister had that view that I'm in charge here. I know I've got to drive you hard to get you where you ought to be. But the changes are

truly significant. This country is still conservative, so you still see most women wearing a bias, but you don't have to. The last time I saw the Crown Prince, he said to me, I was still wearing my black abiah when I walked into his office, and he said, you don't have to wear that, and I said, I know, and sat down and started asking questions. But I think back to your point about how much marketing hype there is. The Crown Prince himself is a marketer. That was my

impression of him in our first meeting. He is, and I don't mean in a kind of cheap hypey way, but he is self confident and he is charismatic, and he is out to convince you that, you know, here's the way things are going to be, and here's what I'm doing to get them there. I mean, he's he likes to sell and he's quite effective at it, I think. Plus, they have all this money and they hire everybody in the world to tout what's going on in the kingdom.

Like Lionel Messi, the soccer player. They tried to hire him for their soccer club. He said no, but they pay him twenty five thousand dollars a year to promote their attempts to get the World Cup, which they did, and to promote the country's tourism business.

Can you talk about how he has managed to There's obviously lots of internal machinations in internal politics, which you describe in detail in the book, But from a I guess maintaining the consent of the governed perspective, how's he maintained that that kind of absolute power over so many aspects of the country in such a short time.

was ill gotten gain, and it probably was. The country was a very corrupt country in under Abdullah. Most people said that up to thirty percent of the budget was just taken, you know, on this and that project. So he tried to intimidate the royals, remove the religious police from the streets, and the religious scholars who didn't agree, some of them found themselves also in prison. And then the old Saudi way of buying people to keep people happy.

The religious police are still paid, they're just not allowed to go out on the street and arrest anyone. So with a combination of intimidation and entertainment for the young and his father obviously agrees with these things, or at the beginning. I don't know how active is or alert his father is now. But when he first became king, he obviously supported MBS, and that was a big part

of his ability to consolidate control. And his father got rid of the first crown prince and put in a second one, and then got rid of that crown prince and put in his son, Mohammed. So his father has been instrumental in helping him consolidate power. But he has the reputation of willingness to use whatever means is necessary to get and retain control so that he can reform and transform the country in the way he believes it ought to go. But he he he uh is the emphasis.

One way to preserve stability within a society is through autocracy and not permitting any democratic processes, any political process stifling, you know, all kinds of political activity and criticism and dissent. And you point out throughout the book that even as these social and economic freedoms have genuinely increased within Saudi Arabia, the political climate has gotten even more repressive. In your

travels there, because this is something I've written about. Lots of Western journalists have reported on this, lots of human rights groups doing really important work in terms of covering political repression within Saudi Arabia. What is the political climate within the country itself, among the people of Saudi Arabia.

decent life. They don't want to, you know, an enormous amount of corruption. I mean, when I wrote my first book, Saudi's were so upset with the royal family taking so much of everything that people used to steal the sheets off their hospital bed on the theory that if the Royals can steal, so can I you know, just frustration at the fact that they felt it was an unfair system. They don't purport to know how to lead or want to or want to vote on somebody. They just want

government that's not that's transparent and accountable. So I think he has tried to provide more of that, the transparency, having key performance indicators for all the ministers and tracking them and publishing here's what we're trying to do, here's what we've done, Here's what we haven't done. I mean, he's he's not afraid of the report card, but you know, he is the he is the superintendent, the principal, and the star pupil, mister everything people call him because they

you know, he did kind of come from nowhere. I mean, he was the sixth son of his father, so he shouldn't have amounted to anything in a hierarchical society, and

Saudi's were kind of where did he come from? Because he had he had government jobs, but they weren't prominent ones, so people didn't know much about him, and then suddenly he's reshaping the government and he's the deputy of Crown Prince, and then he's the Crown Prance, and then he's in charge, as you said, of the Public Investment Fund a RAMCO, everything in the country, every entity in essence reports to him.

and other parts of the Saudi government. You make a few references throughout the book to the role of foreign consultants in the country, and I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about how and why, I guess these Western firms are so involved in so involved in the government of Saudi Arabia under Mohammed ben Solman.

And so because of that, you know, he has a reason to hire uncteen advisors consulting firms to advise on this, that and the other. I mean, the the line the big city that they're building or planning.

But all those firms are there to make money in because he's trying to do literally mouths thousand, let a thousand flowers bloom. He's trying to let a thousand projects bloom. So you know they're all rushing in to get a piece of the money. I'm sure that you know much of what they do is overcharge and underperform. But I mean, the only one of these I've ever read was the McKenzie Vision twenty thirty document, so, and I guess a

lot of that. The things proposed are really in the many five year plans that the country had from nineteen seventy on. But they produced a plan every five years and put it on the shelf. Very little of it ever got done. So probably McKenzie went back and read all the five year plans. I don't know, but that would be a good place to start, just to know

what's been proposed before. I don't know that they did or didn't, but I know that the five year plans mostly were put on the shelf and not execute it.

where we are right now. Can you talk about where here in twenty twenty five, where the kingdom is at in its reliance on oil and the scale at this point of that reliance, and I guess where they are in the transition that has been talked about, as you mentioned, for many, many iterations of five year plans and is obviously a big part of Vision twenty thirty. And what you hear from NBS and other government officials today.

energy users in the world. They use like three point seven million barrels a day for twenty million, thirty million people, and they use much more than anybody except China and the US, who have vastly, vastly greater populations. So they want to have renewable energy so that they can keep some of the fossil fuels to sell to the world, because their oil is the cheapest in the world to produce, so when it's I think it's roughly three dollars a

barrel is my recollection. So when it's selling at eighty, I mean, that's that's huge profit. So they don't want to run out of the ability to have oil to sell. Secondly, they're in a climate that is incredibly hot, so they already have according to a rand study and one by their own King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, they have ninety five days a year that are the temperatures

above one hundred. So it's hard to develop tourism when you have such excessively hot days, and tourism is one of the industries they're trying to grow, and according to Rand, there are going to be one hundred and eighty days over ninety five degrees by twenty thirty, so they do need to do what they can to try to keep down. Nothing they're doing is going to meet the Paris Accords. Don't have more than one point five degrees celsius rise.

I mean, China's running that various others. But they do have an incentive, I think to produce as much renewable energy as they can, both to reduce the greenhouse gases they produce and to have oil that is replaced by sun and wind so they can sell it for more money. So they're producing, as I said in the book, they're putting a chip on every possible option for energy production green energy, solar, wind, and the two are not mutually incompatible.

I mean, the State of text is one of the few places that has managed to reduce the role of oil and its GDP, so it is still America's largest energy producer and also America's largest the state producer of renewable energy. And I think that's exactly you know what MBS's goal is is we want to be a big producer of renewable energy, and we want to and we can. We need it, we use it, and we can try

to sell it. And we also want to be a major producer of oil and gas because the world is going to need it far beyond twenty thirty forty fifty, so that they have more time, they believe, to get the economy off oil, but they need to keep the ideally keep the country from being seen as too hot to visit.

the only heat they can have. They're not going to be able to have oil because they deserve a chance to develop and burning oil is less abusive, he says, to the atmosphere than you know, burning wood. I'm not an expert on that, but you know, he's very big on the idea that you can't tell most of the world they have to stop their development right where they are because we elite Western nations don't want any more

greenhouse gases released. So, I mean, it's a it's a point that Dan Jurgen makes too, the energy Guru.

uses of oil for gasoline. I think the oil for gasoline is what we often think of as the source of the climate crisis, at least from a day to day individual perspective, But what does it mean for this growing investment in petrochemicals, and particularly between two countries Saudi Arabia and China that are huge users and consumers of energy.

they're buying at cut rate prices. So I think, you know, he he wants a relationship with China. So investing in China and having China invest in Saudi is something that I think he sees as a good geopolitical investment. I don't know if it's a good energy investment. I mean, it's kind of beyond my paygrade to argue on that, but I mean the Chinese are doing all kinds of work in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis seem to just be investing money in, you know, in petrochemical plants there.

I don't think the Saudis actually need China for petrochemicals. They've got their own, so I think personally, I think it's more of a political investment than an energy investment. And the Crown Prince, as you may know, has mandated teaching Chinese in addition to English in Saudi schools, and I'm told that his own children study Chinese, so you know, he's got he's got something invested in that, I think

the Chinese. But the Chinese and the Saudis have a compatibility because the Chinese resident is an autocrat and he sees himself as the head of a great civilization. NBA sees himself as the head of a great civilization Islam. They both feel that the US is trying to tell them all the time that human rights are universal and they don't buy it. And they also believe that the repression of your people politically is the right thing to do to hold the society together, to have the unity.

So I mean, I think they have a lot of compatibility that you wouldn't normally think of between a young man and an old man, and a religious or Islamic government and an atheistic government. But I think they I think they're quite compatible, and they're look on individualism is bad. It's the health of the group, the unity that should be paramount.

catch all allegations against critics. So yeah, I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about your relationship with Jamalka Shogi.

talk about society and Saudi Arabia. So you know, I had dinner with him in Jed a couple of times, once with his wife, and you know, saw him in Riod also, you know, and saw he worked for Prince Al Walid bin ta Laal, the rich Saudi prince that is investor in a lot of American companies, and they were trying to start a new TV channel in the Middle East, which began right after King salt Mine came

to power and it was shut down immediately. But anyway, the last time I saw him, uh, we had lunch in the Ozama Hotel in Riod, which has since been torn down. But you know, he never said anything in my recollection of the twenty years I knew him. He didn't criticize the royal family, but he was he was confident enough to explain things in a you know, not a tentative way, a confident way, and he did not

criticize the Crown Prince. In that last lunch he was he expressed his unhappiness that he was not being allowed to write anymore, and he said, I would prefer to have democracy, but at least we have KPI's key performance indicators for accountability that he would prefer the ballot for accountability, but at least there was some account of ability. I mean, he had a good sense of humor, as illustrated by that. And then he left not too long there after to

come to the United States and became a columnist. And I never saw him again when he was in the US. I mean I would see him on TV from time to time, but so yeah, it was for me a big shock when you see him after the death walking into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul along the film and not walking out. I mean, it still seems to me such a stupid thing. But you know our view. I have never had power like Mohammed benzel Mine, so who knows how I would use it, but I don't believe

I would have done that. And as I said in the book, the only genuine human rights activist I ever knew was Mohammed Katani, who worked for the government, and he was determined to change Saudi Arabia through its own law. So he wasn't somebody calling for protests, etc. He planned to do it legally, but he criticized. He asked the king to remove his half brother the Interior minister, and that was considered criticism near treason, and he was put in prison for ten years, and then when he was

supposed to get out, he quote disappeared. But I was told that was in the fall of twenty twenty three. I was told in March this year when I was there, that he is now and is at his apartment in Riod, not saying anything. So I believe that is probably true, but I have not been able to personally test it. And the other one was my translator for the first book. We worked together for five years, nearly six years. He was also working for the government, and I do have

no idea what happened to him. Nobody professes to know. I have been unable. We kept in touch with each other, and then in the fall of twenty twenty one, when I tried to reach him on whats app, I never got an answer, and I never got an answer since. And this year when I tried again, as I do routinely, on that number, a man answered me and said, this is I am not Abdulahamri. This is my number. I've

had it for six months. So I don't know what happened to Abdullah, And I still hope to learn, because he was definitely not a political activist, so I have no idea. And he had a family and you know, children, and he was a religious man, you know, and understood the system well. So I can't believe he did anything that would have gotten him in trouble because I never heard him, and you know, ten years of dealing with him,

say anything critical about any of the royal family. So but that part is sad to see people disappear.

But this combination of spending so much money on consultants and pr gurus to create a certain image of the kingdom internally but also externally to investors in companies and potentially tourists, and also policing the speech so aggressively, particularly online, which is where perceptions are often created these days. And I'm just wondering if you see a link between those two and this kind of this almost obsessive focus on how the kingdom is perceived.

great king, but the state stinks, or vice versa. You know that the king stinks in the state is great. So I think, yeah, that he has spent a lot of money on consultants, et cetera. But my view is that he believes himself to be more the vision, you know, the need to project the country. He doesn't do a lot of public speaking. I think he does see people, you know, more the one on one influence, the opposite of Donald Trump. He is not out talking all the time,

posting all the time, preening all the time. He is more private in that sense. Some of the people who work for him say he is shy. I don't see that, but I mean, he doesn't seemed to like public speaking a lot. He doesn't show up at the UN and get speeches like Nata Yahoo or you know, Trump or other people. So I think he you know, he was obviously bothered by the the way the world treated him

right after the Kashogi event. And I still have this picture that not only the high five with Putin, but he stood there at the G twenty with his fish wrapped around him and his arms folded, and the other heads of state walked by him without saying anything. But he stood there, and it's his view. I think also is the best defense is a good offense. Don't disappear, you know, hold your hold your ground, and it will

eventually get better. And you know, I think it has that he You know, when Joe Biden came to Saudi to ask for more oil, he just said no, given the way by treated him. So you know, he he has he has a strong I think he has a strong sense of confidence about what he's trying to do, and so he doesn't wilt and melt when he comes under fire. I mean, I think any politician arm monarch has to have a pretty strong sense of self confidence.

So I you know, if I had a vote between him and his uncle Mugrin that his father fired, or you know, or even Mohammed ben Nigh of his cousin, Uh He's got much more dynamism and drive and determination and courage than most Saudis do, and I think the country needs a you know, a real kick forward. I said in my first book that the risk to the kingdom was it would go the way of the old Soviet Union, with one old man after another Brezhnev Chernenko and drop off. And but the time they got to

the next generation Gorbachev, it was too late. Or maybe Gorbachev just wasn't smart enough. I don't know, but you know in that the risk in Saudi Arabia was the same Abdullah Sultan Naya Salmon, and you know that the country was uh sclerotic and needed the arteries cleaned out. And I said, they still have time, and they have a lot of money for surgery and stints, but is there a daring doctor who could perform the operation? And I think MBS is as close to the daring doctor

as I've seen. I met Mohammed bin Naya for the first book when he was running the rehabilitation of terrorists, Saudi terrorists. I don't know anybody that's got the confidence

and drive. I've never met another Saudi with the confidence and drive other than a man who's in prison now, Salman auDA, who was one of the Awakening shakes in the mid nineties and was put in prison by King Faha then let out and under Abdullah became quite a you know, had a weekly TV show and magazines and you know, it was a media mog almost And he I don't know what he did, but he is in prison.

The he believes from what his son says, that he's there because he is accused of criticizing the government, the Crown Prince for severing relations with Cutter. But anyway, he is. He is a truly charismatic, confident man. Impressive I always thought, and I uh, unabashedly say, I think MBS, while coming with a lot of baggage, comes with this drive and determination to move the country forward and it needs that very much. And I know a lot of Saudis don't agree.

I get mail from I got an e mail from I don't know who he is, but just saying to me, I don't want my wife working with strange men. You know,

this is not what we want. And I know there are people there that think that because I lived with a very religiously conservative lady when I was doing the first book, so and I'm from a very religiously conservative family, so I have never felt, you know, intimidated in Saudi Arabia, by the fact that you know, there are people who believe deeply and believe that you shouldn't be focused on

the things of the world. My father didn't let us wear shorts, our pants are, We had no TV, no telephone, we could not date, you know, all the he was a good Saudi father.

in perfect English, what is this? What is this? Pointing at my ankles, and told the man I was with a businessman. Get her in the car, you know, But I didn't. Somehow, I don't know the religio. The religious excess didn't turn me off on the country because I had grown up in a town where the only thing there was to do town of nine hundred people with

five churches was go to church. You know, we did have a drive in theater, but we weren't very often able to go to it unless my father took us to see the Ten Commandments or something like that.