With the global economy already teetering as the result of the coronavirus outbreak that is now officially a pandemic, Saudi Arabia’s young and powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has risked pushing the world into recession by firing a shot directly into the oil markets. It was a trademark move by the prince, known as MBS, who has shown he can be brazen and ruthless—and occasionally self-destructive—when he’s determined to get his way. On Sunday night, MBS announced that Saudi Arabia would sharply increase its oil output despite a steep decline in global demand. It was precisely the opposite of [...]
The stunning allegation this week that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hacked the phone of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, according to a report by United Nations investigators, may come as a shock to some. But for most people tracking the rise of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler over the past five years, it’s business as usual. From his disastrous proxy war in Yemen to the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, the young crown prince, known as MBS, has demonstrated time and again his hubristic belief that there are no limits [...]
For years, a cloud hung over a corner of the Middle East, containing fears of yet another conflict suddenly erupting. They centered on what would happen after the death of the longest reigning monarch in the Gulf, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, who ruled over the Sultanate of Oman for half a century without leaving behind an heir apparent. Qaboos had been ill for years, and yet, if you tried to gently broach the subject of his successor with Omani citizens, they would recoil. The sultan had set up a system for succession and everyone knew it. But no one knew [...]
