Episode 127
Saudi Arabia’s Oil Price War & the Rise of Mohammed Bin Salman | Ben Hubbard
Episode 127
Ben Hubbard
Saudi Arabia’s Oil Price War & the Rise of Mohammed Bin Salman | Ben Hubbard
summary
In Episode 127 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Ben Hubbard, the Beirut bureau chief for The New York Times about Saudi Arabia and the rise to power of Mohammed bin Salman. Topics include the ongoing oil price war, tensions with Iran, the war in Yemen, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. The two also discuss the impact of coronavirus for the region’s politics and security.
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?
Ben 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, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood with his grand visions for a new Saudi Arabia and a reordered Middle East. In 2017, Saudi Arabia made global headlines by announcing that it would lift its long-time ban on women driving and hosting a lavish “Davos in the Desert” conference, where 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 attempt on Hubbard himself), and others who supported views critical of the Saudi regime; and most infamously for his links to the operatives who killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Their conversation explores these palace intrigues, as Ben and Demetri consider how this bold (and perhaps dangerous) new leader is changing the face of the Bedowin kingdom, both for the better and for the worse.
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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou
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bio
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.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nec vero sum nescius esse utilitatem in historia, non modo voluptatem. Erit enim mecum, si tecum erit. Cuius ad naturam apta ratio vera illa et summa lex a philosophis dicitur. Illa argumenta propria videamus, cur omnia sint paria peccata. Cum autem in quo sapienter dicimus, id a primo rectissime dicitur. Iam id ipsum absurdum, maximum malum neglegi. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Haec quo modo conveniant, non sane intellego.
Bonum valitudo: miser morbus. Sed ego in hoc resisto; Nam de isto magna dissensio est. Atque ita re simpliciter primo collocata reliqua subtilius persequentes corporis bona facilem quandam rationem habere censebant; Ad corpus diceres pertinere-, sed ea, quae dixi, ad corpusne refers? Utrum igitur percurri omnem Epicuri disciplinam placet an de una voluptate quaeri, de qua omne certamen est? Ergo opifex plus sibi proponet ad formarum quam civis excellens ad factorum pulchritudinem?
Vide, ne etiam menses! nisi forte eum dicis, qui, simul atque arripuit, interficit. Cur tantas regiones barbarorum pedibus obiit, tot maria transmisit? Omnes enim iucundum motum, quo sensus hilaretur. Si enim ad populum me vocas, eum.
Portenta haec esse dicit, neque ea ratione ullo modo posse vivi; Hinc ceteri particulas arripere conati suam quisque videro voluit afferre sententiam. Quae cum magnifice primo dici viderentur, considerata minus probabantur. Utinam quidem dicerent alium alio beatiorem! Iam ruinas videres. Collatio igitur ista te nihil iuvat. Quid igitur dubitamus in tota eius natura quaerere quid sit effectum? Et nemo nimium beatus est; Conferam tecum, quam cuique verso rem subicias; Illi enim inter se dissentiunt. Itaque in rebus minime obscuris non multus est apud eos disserendi labor.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Hoc dictum in una re latissime patet, ut in omnibus factis re, non teste moveamur. Apparet statim, quae sint officia, quae actiones. Unum nescio, quo modo possit, si luxuriosus sit, finitas cupiditates habere. Quodsi ipsam honestatem undique pertectam atque absolutam. Tum ego: Non mehercule, inquam, soleo temere contra Stoicos, non quo illis admodum assentiar, sed pudore impedior; Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Sed plane dicit quod intellegit. Nec vero pietas adversus deos nec quanta iis gratia debeatur sine explicatione naturae intellegi potest. Cuius quidem, quoniam Stoicus fuit, sententia condemnata mihi videtur esse inanitas ista verborum. Itaque contra est, ac dicitis;
Certe, nisi voluptatem tanti aestimaretis. Te ipsum, dignissimum maioribus tuis, voluptasne induxit, ut adolescentulus eriperes P. Nihil illinc huc pervenit. Quis est tam dissimile homini. Restincta enim sitis stabilitatem voluptatis habet, inquit, illa autem voluptas ipsius restinctionis in motu est. Scio enim esse quosdam, qui quavis lingua philosophari possint; Et nemo nimium beatus est; Atque hoc loco similitudines eas, quibus illi uti solent, dissimillimas proferebas.
Ex ea difficultate illae fallaciloquae, ut ait Accius, malitiae natae sunt. Cum salvum esse flentes sui respondissent, rogavit essentne fusi hostes. Callipho ad virtutem nihil adiunxit nisi voluptatem, Diodorus vacuitatem doloris. Igitur neque stultorum quisquam beatus neque sapientium non beatus. Ut enim consuetudo loquitur, id solum dicitur honestum, quod est populari fama gloriosum.
Non est ista, inquam, Piso, magna dissensio. Idemne potest esse dies saepius, qui semel fuit? Qui si omnes veri erunt, ut Epicuri ratio docet, tum denique poterit aliquid cognosci et percipi. Antiquorum autem sententiam Antiochus noster mihi videtur persequi diligentissime, quam eandem Aristoteli fuisse et Polemonis docet. Quae similitudo in genere etiam humano apparet. Idem iste, inquam, de voluptate quid sentit? Praeclare enim Plato: Beatum, cui etiam in senectute contigerit, ut sapientiam verasque opiniones assequi possit.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Hoc loco tenere se Triarius non potuit. Beatus autem esse in maximarum rerum timore nemo potest. Mihi quidem Antiochum, quem audis, satis belle videris attendere. Ipse Epicurus fortasse redderet, ut Sextus Peducaeus, Sex. Ut in geometria, prima si dederis, danda sunt omnia. Expectoque quid ad id, quod quaerebam, respondeas. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Quare conare, quaeso. Non enim, si omnia non sequebatur, idcirco non erat ortus illinc. Quid igitur dubitamus in tota eius natura quaerere quid sit effectum?
Quae in controversiam veniunt, de iis, si placet, disseramus. Vitae autem degendae ratio maxime quidem illis placuit quieta. Non autem hoc: igitur ne illud quidem. Quo tandem modo? Dicam, inquam, et quidem discendi causa magis, quam quo te aut Epicurum reprehensum velim.
Non quaeritur autem quid naturae tuae consentaneum sit, sed quid disciplinae. Verba tu fingas et ea dicas, quae non sentias? Quem Tiberina descensio festo illo die tanto gaudio affecit, quanto L. Quo plebiscito decreta a senatu est consuli quaestio Cn. Qui ita affectus, beatum esse numquam probabis; Sed quid sentiat, non videtis.
Septem autem illi non suo, sed populorum suffragio omnium nominati sunt. Quantum Aristoxeni ingenium consumptum videmus in musicis? Nihilne te delectat umquam -video, quicum loquar-, te igitur, Torquate, ipsum per se nihil delectat? An vero displicuit ea, quae tributa est animi virtutibus tanta praestantia? Aliter enim explicari, quod quaeritur, non potest. Totum autem id externum est, et quod externum, id in casu est. Sic, et quidem diligentius saepiusque ista loquemur inter nos agemusque communiter.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Huic mori optimum esse propter desperationem sapientiae, illi propter spem vivere. Respondent extrema primis, media utrisque, omnia omnibus. Non enim iam stirpis bonum quaeret, sed animalis. Qualem igitur hominem natura inchoavit? Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Tu autem negas fortem esse quemquam posse, qui dolorem malum putet.
Re mihi non aeque satisfacit, et quidem locis pluribus. Suo genere perveniant ad extremum; Quod idem cum vestri faciant, non satis magnam tribuunt inventoribus gratiam. Quamquam te quidem video minime esse deterritum. Illum mallem levares, quo optimum atque humanissimum virum, Cn. A primo, ut opinor, animantium ortu petitur origo summi boni. Bestiarum vero nullum iudicium puto. Duarum enim vitarum nobis erunt instituta capienda.
Ut id aliis narrare gestiant? Hoc loco tenere se Triarius non potuit. Videmus igitur ut conquiescere ne infantes quidem possint. Rationis enim perfectio est virtus; Summus dolor plures dies manere non potest? Quodsi vultum tibi, si incessum fingeres, quo gravior viderere, non esses tui similis; Sed ego in hoc resisto; Scaevola tribunus plebis ferret ad plebem vellentne de ea re quaeri.
An me, inquam, nisi te audire vellem, censes haec dicturum fuisse? Ab hoc autem quaedam non melius quam veteres, quaedam omnino relicta. Atqui haec patefactio quasi rerum opertarum, cum quid quidque sit aperitur, definitio est. Sed quid minus probandum quam esse aliquem beatum nec satis beatum? Quae in controversiam veniunt, de iis, si placet, disseramus. Hinc ceteri particulas arripere conati suam quisque videro voluit afferre sententiam. Erat enim Polemonis. Restinguet citius, si ardentem acceperit.