Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was right to fear the entry into the White House of Democrat Joe Biden at the expense of Donald Trump, while he had staked everything on a re-election of the American billionaire, of which he was the one of the proteges.

In the aftermath of Washington's declassification of an American intelligence report on the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, which accuses him of having "validated" the operation to "capture or kill" the Saudi journalist, MBS appears as the big loser, on the diplomatic scene of the Middle East, of the election of Joe Biden to the presidency of the United States.

The Democrat, who wishes to "recalibrate" relations between Washington and Riyadh by breaking with the diplomacy of the Trump era in the region, has never hidden his hostility towards the young prince, especially during the presidential campaign.

A public disavowal with international repercussions

And if Washington has decided not to sanction MBS, the public disavowal of the international repercussions it has just inflicted on him ruins the efforts of King Salman's son to rehabilitate his image and that of his country, which are already very damaged.

It is a hard blow for the one who presented himself in the West as an open and reforming prince, determined to liberalize, gently, a rigorous and ultraconservative kingdom.

Appointed Minister of Defense, then Crown Prince in June 2017 by King Salman, on the Saudi throne since January 2015, MBS, described as impulsive and in a hurry, has experienced a meteoric rise.

Notably thanks to its plan to transform the Saudi economy - too dependent on oil - and its commitment to fight corruption and terrorism.

But his initiatives were quickly eclipsed by his brutal methods of governance and an authoritarian drift within the country.

In a matter of months, he became the de facto ruler of the Wahhabi kingdom, moving it from a monarchy based on consensus between the various branches of the royal family to a personalized regime in which powers were concentrated in his hands.

His charming offensives and his tours abroad are highly publicized and make us somewhat forget the hasty campaigns of arrests carried out in the kingdom against members of the royal family, human rights activists, d intellectuals and critics.

Abuses several times denounced by Jamal Khashoggi, who had gone into exile in the United States from 2017, in uncompromising editorials published in the Washington Post.

But it is above all the international storm triggered by the assassination of the same Jamal Khashoggi on October 2, 2018, which will tarnish the image of Mohammed ben Salman, and put the heavy toll of the Wahhabi petromonarchy back on the front of the media scene. in human rights.

Restriction of freedoms of expression and association, ban on peaceful assemblies, non-existent religious freedom outside Islam, unfair trials, discrimination against women and the Shiite minority, exercise of torture and arbitrary death sentences ... If the repressive nature of the Saudi monarchy, governed by a rigorous version of Sharia, Islamic law, with regard to any internal dispute has always been required, the situation has hardened since the rise of the Crown Prince.

An embarrassing ally for the United States

At the diplomatic level, the balance sheet supposed to legitimize MBS on the international level is just as negative, while on this level too, he tried the hard way.

"Whether it is the Yemeni quagmire which has become a Vietnam at the gates of the kingdom, whether it is still the muscular embargo intended to make Qatar bend, or even the coup against Lebanon with the case of the real false resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri ... None of his initiatives have enabled the Saudis to strengthen their positions on the regional scene vis-à-vis Iran ", summed up Karim Sader, political scientist a few months ago and consultant specializing in the Gulf, interviewed by France 24.

In Yemen in particular, where he started the fight in March 2015, the Houthi Shiite rebels, supported by Tehran, still resist the international coalition, while the conflict has provoked what the UN calls "the world's worst humanitarian crisis". .

Dubbed in May 2017 by US President Donald Trump, then visiting Saudi Arabia, MBS links his diplomacy to that of the Trump administration, focused like him on the Iranian threat.

He gets closer to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the president in charge of the Middle East file.

Privileged relations and direct access to the Oval office which will be very useful to him at the time of the Khashoggi affair.

While he now appears as an embarrassing ally for the United States, President Donald Trump defends him personally, to ensure the Saudi guarantee for his "deal of the century" in the Middle East and the opening of diplomatic relations between some. Gulf countries and Israel.

But for their part, the American press and the Democratic camp do not spare the son of the Saudi king, who ends up assuming "all the responsibility" for the assassination of the journalist while denying being the sponsor.

In October 2018, the American magazine Newsweek unveiled an unpublished - and undated - interview with Jamal Khashoggi in which the latter considers that MBS is nothing other than a "retrograde tribal leader", enjoying an "autocratic" power and not seeking in no way an opening of the Saudi regime to democracy.

The journalist also assures in this interview fear for his life.

Riyadh has so far never revealed the whereabouts of the journalist's body, which has not reappeared after an administrative meeting at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018.

With the publication of the CIA report, the strongman of the Wahhabi monarchy is no longer untouchable.

The arrival at the White House of Joe Biden, who has multiplied the decisions unfavorable to MBS (hand extended to Tehran with a view to a possible return to the Iranian nuclear agreement, restrictions on the deliveries of weapons to Riyadh), undoubtedly caused the prince to lose the sense of impunity he enjoyed during the Trump era.

It remains to be seen what will be the future of MBS within the kingdom, and whether the US administration is not initiating a process aimed at bringing about its downfall.

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