MBS' Domestic Agenda Is Also Driving Saudi Arabia's Diplomatic Blitz

Saudi Arabia is in the middle of a diplomatic blitz. From hosting yesterday's talks between Washington and Kyiv over the war in Ukraine to positioning the kingdom as central to the "day after" plans for postwar Gaza and offering to help deconflict tensions between the U.S. and Iran, Riyadh appears to be everywhere. This "peace push" is tethered to the political agenda of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS - namely, his effort to rehabilitate his own image while positioning the kingdom at the forefront of Middle East geopolitics and casting Saudi Arabia as a constructive player on the international stage. At its core, this international push by Saudi Arabia is intimately linked to internal politics inside the kingdom, particularly MBS' efforts to preserve and expand his own power. MBS is spearheading a new hypernationalist project designed to restructure the country's domestic "ruling bargain" and transform Riyadh's global image. Almost every Saudi policy at home and abroad is a byproduct of this new project as well as MBS' ultimate imperatives of regime preservation and power projection. Critical to this effort is the restructuring of the Saudi economy toward a sustainable footing in anticipation of a future of declining oil revenues. MBS' ambitious economic plan, Vision 2030, is the economic foundation of his new nationalist project, aimed at establishing Saudi Arabia as the major economic hub of the Middle East and a lucrative market for international capital. For MBS, the success of this nationalist project is existential. It is the new autocratic foundation on which the crown prince - the kingdom's de facto ruler who has already amassed more power than any individual in the history of the Saudi state - hopes to base his authority. But the success of this domestic vision depends on more than just absolute control at home. It is intertwined with regional and international objectives, making it also the driver of Saudi foreign policy. At the regional level, MBS needs calm to focus on his domestic agenda. This is why he has shifted from an aggressive foreign policy, epitomized by the Saudi intervention in Yemen in 2015, toward an emphasis on de-escalation beginning roughly in 2020. In particular, Saudi Arabia has focused heavily on deconfliction with Iran, its chief regional adversary with which it had severed relations in 2016. In 2023, after a period of diplomatic engagement, Riyadh and Tehran reestablished formal relations. The two sides have continued to pursue their delicate détente since then. This should not be interpreted as a cessation of long-standing strategic competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but rather as opportunistic maneuvering by both parties, given the changing regional and international contexts as well as both sides' increased concern with pressing domestic issues. The success of Mohammed bin Salman's domestic vision is intertwined with regional and international objectives, making it also the driver of Saudi foreign policy. Recently, concern in Riyadh over the prospects of a region-wide conflict have grown considerably in the wake of the war in Gaza and rising tensions between Israel, Iran and the United States. Compounding these heightened tensions are concerns over Iran's nuclear program, with Tehran now closer to being able to manufacture a nuclear weapon than any point since its uranium enrichment program was discovered in the early 2000s. Fearful that a war between Israel, Iran and the U.S. would consume and destabilize the entire region, Riyadh is offering to mediate between Tehran and Washington, hoping that it can prevent such an outcome. MBS is also keen on asserting Saudi Arabia's central role in shaping the Middle East's geostrategic landscape. This has been particularly apparent over the past year and a half, after the war in Gaza brought the Israel-Palestine conflict back to the forefront of regional geopolitics. Before Hamas' attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023...