The Little Prince: Mohammed bin Salman’s Shaky Rise to Power

Mohammed bin Salman has spent a decade projecting inevitability. He would modernise Saudi Arabia, diversify its economy, defeat the Houthis, contain Iran and establish the Kingdom as the dominant Arab power. The domestic transformation is real. The religious establishment has been weakened, women’s participation in the economy has increased, tourism and entertainment have expanded and Saudi society is considerably more open.

His strategic record is much less impressive. The Houthis were not defeated. Qatar was not forced into submission. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi became an international humiliation. Iran remains a threat. Saudi oil infrastructure has proved vulnerable. NEOM has been scaled back from some of its original ambitions. Normalisation with Israel remains stalled.

Now MbS has another answer: the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement with Turkey and Pakistan. The question is whether this is a new security architecture or another attempt to compensate for the failures of Saudi power.

MbS’s central problem is partly of his own making. He has concentrated Saudi political authority around himself to an extent rarely seen in the modern Kingdom. In 2017, Mohammed bin Nayef was removed as crown prince and replaced by MbS. MbN had controlled the Interior Ministry, led Saudi counterterrorism efforts and developed close relations with American intelligence.

Months later came the Ritz-Carlton purge. Princes, former ministers and leading businessmen were detained in what Riyadh called an anti-corruption campaign. Whatever its stated purpose, its political effect was clear: independent centres of wealth and influence were broken and potential rivals intimidated. MbS emerged dominant. But centralisation carries a price. When one man controls the system, its failures become his failures.

Yemen is the most obvious example. Saudi Arabia intervened in 2015 with overwhelming financial and technological superiority. The Houthis were expected to be pushed out of Sana’a and the internationally recognised government restored. More than a decade later, the Houthis remain entrenched across northern Yemen. Worse, they acquired the ability to strike Saudi territory with missiles and drones. The 2019 attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais temporarily knocked out roughly half of Saudi oil production. After years of war and enormous defence expenditure, Riyadh failed to defeat an armed movement on its southern border.

Khashoggi was the second major blow. The Saudi journalist entered the Kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 and was killed inside. Turkey controlled the crime scene and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan exploited the advantage ruthlessly. Turkish authorities released information gradually, keeping the affair in the international headlines while Saudi explanations repeatedly changed. Erdoğan avoided directly accusing King Salman while steadily increasing pressure on the Crown Prince.

American intelligence later concluded that MbS had approved an operation to capture or kill Khashoggi. Members of his own Rapid Intervention Force were involved, as were individuals linked to his close adviser Saud al-Qahtani. The affair exposed the weakness inherent in MbS’s concentration of power. A prince who wanted it understood that nothing important happened without him suddenly needed the world to believe that an extraordinarily important operation had happened without his knowledge.

Qatar was another miscalculation. Saudi Arabia and its allies imposed a blockade in 2017 and issued sweeping demands to Doha. Qatar refused to capitulate, adapted economically and strengthened its relationship with Turkey. The blockade eventually ended without Riyadh achieving its original objectives. The pattern became familiar: maximalist objective, confrontation, resistance, eventual accommodation.

Iran presents the same problem on a much larger scale. MbS has repeatedly identified Iran as the principal strategic threat to the Kingdom. Yet Saudi policy has oscillated between confrontation and détente. Riyadh wants American protection but questions Washington’s reliability. It sees the strategic advantages of cooperation with Israel but has not joined the Abraham Accords. It wants Iran contained but does not want Saudi Arabia to become a battlefield in a wider regional war.

These may be sensible calculations. They are not evidence of the decisive regional leadership MbS has spent years advertising. The Mecca Pact should be seen against this background. Turkey offers military strength and a substantial defence industry. Pakistan offers one of the Muslim world’s largest armed forces and its only nuclear arsenal. Saudi Arabia offers financing, geography and religious legitimacy. It is potentially a formidable combination.

But it also raises an obvious question. After decades of enormous Saudi defence expenditure, why does Riyadh need Turkey and Pakistan to provide additional strategic protection?The religious packaging is equally interesting.

MbS spent years weakening the Wahhabi establishment and presenting himself internationally as the leader of a more moderate Saudi Arabia. There is no evidence that the Mecca Pact was specifically designed to placate Wahhabi conservatives. But its political usefulness is obvious. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan can now be presented as the core of a powerful Sunni security bloc. MbS gets Islamic legitimacy without abandoning his social reforms.More importantly, the alliance gives him an alternative to choices he has been reluctant to make.

He does not have to depend entirely on Washington. He does not have to join the Abraham Accords while Gaza and Palestinian statehood remain politically explosive. He does not have to confront Iran alone. Turkey and Pakistan provide strategic cover. Whether they provide actual security is another matter.

The immediate contradiction remains Yemen. Saudi Arabia is trying to construct a security architecture stretching from Turkey to Pakistan while the Houthis remain undefeated on its own border. That is difficult to present as regional dominance.

There is also an unresolved question inside the House of Saud. King Salman is elderly and MbS already exercises effective executive power. His accession remains overwhelmingly likely. There is currently no credible evidence of a royal faction capable of preventing it. But Saudi Arabia has no deputy crown prince. MbS spent years removing uncertainty about who would succeed his father while leaving unanswered who would succeed him.

Mohammed bin Nayef is unlikely to return under present circumstances. But his importance is symbolic. He represents the system MbS dismantled, in which powerful princes controlled separate institutions and maintained independent relationships with Washington and other foreign capitals.

Bandar bin Sultan represents the same vanished model. The former ambassador to Washington and intelligence chief had an international network independent of any crown prince. He is not a realistic successor to MbS, but his career illustrates how much the structure of Saudi power has changed.

There are now fewer independent power centres and fewer alternative decision-makers.Saudi Arabia has become more efficient, but also more dependent on the judgment of one man.

The same problem is visible in Vision 2030. The programme has delivered important reforms. But NEOM and The Line have also demonstrated the gap between MbS’s ambitions and financial reality. Projects have been recalibrated and targets reduced.

Saudi Arabia is not facing an economic crisis. It remains exceptionally wealthy. The issue is credibility. MbS set targets so ambitious that scaling them back inevitably looks like retreat.

This is why the current confrontation with Iran matters. MbS has made himself responsible for almost every major Saudi policy.Yemen is his war. Vision 2030 is his economic programme. NEOM is his flagship project. Washington is his alliance to manage. Israel is his unresolved choice. Iran is his principal security challenge. The Mecca Pact is his new answer.

He has also removed most of the people who might otherwise share responsibility.

That is the risk of personalised power.If Saudi Arabia emerges from the Iran confrontation with its infrastructure protected, the Houthis contained and the Mecca Pact functioning as a credible deterrent, MbS will be strengthened. His claim to have created a new Saudi regional order will look considerably more convincing.

If Iran and the Houthis continue to expose Saudi vulnerabilities, the conclusion will be different.Mohammed bin Salman has spent a decade proving that Saudi Arabia cannot function without him. He now has to prove that it can succeed because of him. The ayatollah’s may survive Trump and Bibi, MbS and his insecurities might not.