>> So the thing that happened that I didn't expect is the lack of preparation by the American team.

I'm very surprised that President Biden and his team went there and came back with so little from the Saudis and that this was a total win for the Saudis.

♪♪ >> Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer.

And today President Joe Biden just finished a whirlwind tour of the Middle East.

He had stops in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Saudi Arabia.

It was his first visit to the region since taking office.

With gas prices and inflation hitting record highs recently, Biden was there in part to ask Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to increase Saudi oil production, helping bring down prices at the pump.

It's a matter of great concern for American voters, but a fist bump with MBS comes with strings, even if the trip did further American interest.

And this week, I speak with Princeton professor Bernard Haykel about whether Biden's visit was the right move.

He's a renowned expert on Saudi affairs and he has the crown prince on speed dial.

Then in 2018, women in Saudi Arabia were granted the right to drive.

But for one activist who helped pave the way for progress, it came with a jail sentence.

Don't worry.

I've also got your "Puppet Regime."

>> Oh, my God.

Hey, you, been a while.

How's it going?

>> But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

>> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by... >> Istanbul, October 2, 2018.

Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate to obtain documents for his upcoming wedding to his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz.

After waiting patiently for more than 3 hours, Cengiz finally asked consulate staff where her partner was.

Staff there said he had left through the back door, but leaked audio recordings eventually released by the Turkish government told a horrifying story.

>> The transcript records many voices and noises, then says "scream" from Jamal.

Again, "scream."

Then "gasping."

Noises are identified as "saw" and "cutting."

>> According to the CIA, the order to kidnap and kill Jamal Khashoggi came directly from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who serves as de facto ruler of the country.

U.S.-Saudi relations have been strained since Biden took office.

Biden had refused any direct engagement with the crown prince, promising when he ran for president to treat the kingdom as a pariah on the international stage.

But the President's recent trip to the region has made MBS look a lot less like a pariah and more like a partner.

Biden claimed this trip would advance important American interests.

And he's right, even if neither see eye to eye on human rights.

>> These sheikhs attract lots of attention wherever they go.

>> The kingdom has been a valuable partner of the United States since the '40s.

As a top oil exporter, it can help lower American energy prices.

It's America's largest arms purchaser in the world and is very aligned with the United States on regional security and opposition to Iran, providing vital intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation.

And for what it's worth, MBS has been making changes inside the kingdom, including meaningful and overdue social and economic reforms, enhancing the role of women, diversifying the economy away from oil and petrochemicals, downgrading the role of religious law, and generally making the country more open, tolerant and investable.

The Saudis have also been working closely behind the scenes with Israel, America's closest ally in the region, and they've blessed the ongoing normalization of relations between the Jewish state and the Arab world.

In fact, during the visit, Saudis even announced they would open airspace to all international carriers.

That includes Israeli ones.

But after failing to secure clear deals on oil and security, Biden's trip to the kingdom looks more like a win for the crown prince than it does for the President.

This week, I speak with Princeton professor Bernard Haykel.

He's a renowned expert on Saudi Arabia, and he's also a confidant of the crown prince.

Here's our conversation.

Bernard Haykel, thanks so much for joining us.

>> It's a pleasure.

>> Of course, a fair amount of controversy in the meeting between Biden and MBS.

You know the Saudi crown prince personally very well.

What happened that you did not actually expect?

>> So the thing that happened that I didn't expect is the lack of preparation by the American team.

I'm very surprised that Biden, President Biden and his team went there and came back with so little from the Saudis, that they hadn't agreed to something in advance and that this was a total win for the Saudis in terms of P.R., in terms of reaffirming the centrality of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East.

It's a complete victory for the Saudi -- for MBS and for the Saudi government, the Saudi state.

>> Now, I mean, I understand that it's a big deal to get the American president to come and visit.

But did I miss -- Were there announcements from the Americans that actually moved the ball from the Saudi perspective?

>> Basically the stuff on Iran that, you know, there is a commitment to never allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon, that they -- that America will help defend Saudi Arabia from attack on its territory, presumably from Iranian proxies, especially the Houthis in Yemen.

You know, all of that is music to Saudi Arabia's ears.

And the Saudis were able to show that they have tremendous convening power.

I mean, they were able to bring all the GCC leaders, the leaders of the countries of the Gulf, and the Iraqi prime minister, the the king of Jordan and the president of Egypt.

And it just signaled that Saudi Arabia is simply the most important country in that region and that you need it both for the stability of the region as well as for global energy stability.

>> If we were talking a few years ago, of course, the Qatari certainly wouldn't have been in that group.

That's one of the bigger things that has changed, is the fact that the GCC feels more unified, more aligned.

Do you think that is stable?

>> It's very hard to say that it's stable because, you know, these are highly personalistic regimes where individuals can wake up one morning and decide one thing that runs counter to the past.

But what I get from the Saudi leadership and also from the UAE is that there's been a steep learning curve and that, you know, playing the kinds of games that they played with boycotts of each other and so on are very counterproductive.

And so, for instance, now they've wired the electrical grid of Iraq to the GCC, or they're about to do that.

That's a very good thing.

It brings Iraq out of, you know, partially out of Iran's orbit and into the GCC orbit.

So I think there is some maturity there.

And that's something that the Americans have encouraged, and I think rightfully so.

>> We can get into the big geopolitics.

But I want to ask you a little bit about Mohammed bin Salman himself because, you know, he has been one of the most controversial, provocative figures on the geopolitical stage globally.

And some of that has been revolutionary in a positive sense.

Some of that has been revolutionary in a very negative sense.

How do you make sense of that from a global perspective?

>> So, look, I mean, he represents a phenomenon that we see in other countries as well, you know, a very strong nationalist populism.

A strong authoritarian streak.

I mean, we see this in India.

We see this in Turkey and other places, as you well know.

But in his case, I think what's happened is that he really had to consolidate his power and centralize his power.

In order to do that, he's had to emasculate large numbers of the royal family, including the key individual that was America's favorite.

That is his cousin, Mohammed bin Nayef, who is, you know, the darling of the CIA and British intelligence and every other Western intelligence agency.

>> And then was under house arrest for years, right?

>> He's had his wings clipped.

Okay.

Let's put that, you know, putting it politely and many others have as well.

He's also had to completely and radically change the business as usual in the country, which involved a tremendous amount of corruption and stealing from the treasury, from elites, including members of the royal family.

He's had to also emasculate the very reactionary forces in the country, the Islamists, the hard-core Islamists, who are the only ones who can mobilize large numbers of people in the streets against him.

So that consolidation effort was extremely brutal and messy at times.

And it involved, of course, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

I think now all of that is pretty much in the past.

He's very much in power and will become the king unless he's assassinated.

So he can rest a bit easier.

>> Biden claimed that he brought up the Khashoggi issue with MBS.

MBS in return said that he talked about Abu Ghraib and other American human rights abuses, the Israeli slaying of a Palestinian journalist recently that they denied officially.

Is this relationship ever going to have meaningful discussion on human rights?

>> So the problem with the issue of human rights is whenever you raise it with the Saudis, they see it as an, you know, an intervention in their sovereign -- domestic, sovereign kind of affairs.

And they'll always turn around and say, you know, but, you know, "Who are you to tell us?

You know, you invaded Iraq, you did this, you did that.

You know, you drone people in Afghanistan."

So I think, you know, it's best if you have those conversations.

I think those conversations ought to be had, that they be had, you know, sotto voce, not in public, that you will get much more out of the Saudis if you speak to them privately and insist that these are issues that matter and that, in fact, they're not only just good for America, they're also good for Saudi Arabia.

>> So can we at least say that MBS is less likely to directly order the assassination of journalists going forward?

>> Oh, absolutely.

I mean, I don't think that they will ever do anything like that again.

And look, frankly, you know, I'm going to say this, you know, and I think in some ways, the Khashoggi murder, tragic as it was, in a way, it saved a lot of other journalists from being killed.

I mean, the blowback from that event was so, you know, serious and I think demoralizing for the Saudi leadership that they will never do that thing -- that they'll never do that again.

I mean, that doesn't mean that they won't, you know, try to extradite people and put people in prison and all that.

They will.

But this kind of rogue operation, I think, is in the past.

>> I want to get to the upside.

But first, when you say it's all in the past, I mean, just in recent months, we've seen mass executions, some of which involve people that were arrested when they were children.

I mean, this doesn't feel like it's all in the past.

>> Well, it's still a very repressive and authoritarian regime.

The individuals in question that we're talking about, there are some 81 of them.

Half of them were al-Qaeda and ISIS individuals.

I mean, some of them fairly high-ranking people.

>> Yep.

>> No one will shed a tear in the United States or shouldn't shed a tear for those guys.

The other half are Shi'ite dissidents.

And there I think yes, you're right.

There are some people who certainly did not deserve execution.

But this is a repressive regime and he's engaged in a massive overhaul of the country.

Look, I was there just this weekend on a beach in in Jeddah.

There were Saudis in bikinis everywhere.

I mean, the change is just unbelievable.

Impossible to have predicted.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the kinds of changes that have happened.

You see women everywhere working in the workforce.

You see women who are uncovered, unveiled.

In positions of power and influence.

You see young people who are super excited about him.

And I think that he's basically banking on the bulk of the population that's under 30, that's young and that thinks he's a rock star because of the things he's doing.

Anyone over 40 hates him because he's taking away the entitlements and changing the way the modus operandi of the country.

>> And most of the country is indeed very young.

>> That's right.

I mean, I counted the ones over 65 are like 3% of the population.

He frankly doesn't care about them.

>> Do you think that Saudi Arabia has sort of cracked this problem in terms of the need to -- of Saudization?

I mean, historically, it's really hard to get young Saudis and many young people in the Gulf to actually work.

There's an enormous amount of entitlement.

Diversification of the Saudi economy -- Even five years ago, you know, I'd have leaders from Saudi Arabia tell me that diversification meant petrochemicals as opposed to just taking oil out of the ground.

I mean, are they really -- Do you believe that he has passed the point of no return on that?

>> I mean, he has no choice.

He has to get away from oil because that's just -- you know, it's unsustainable relying on oil in the way the country has.

Now, whether he has the human capital, he's able to change the culture of the country, that's not something that can be done overnight.

That's going to take a generation, maybe two.

So the jury's out on that.

And it's not unique, by the way.

The problem is not unique to the Saudis.

You see it in all rentier states across the world, in Latin America and, you know, and everywhere.

So he has a tough -- he really has a very, very hard task.

>> It's not unique in Saudi Arabia, but in some ways it's most dramatic.

It's a large population.

It's a huge amount of oil wealth.

It is very cheap to get out of the ground.

I mean, so, you know, it's easier to sit on your laurels if you're the Saudis.

>> Absolutely.

And in fact, the test will be right now because right now he's raking it in.

The country is raking it in because of the price of oil.

And typically what happens in the past in Saudi history, political history, in political and economic history is when times are good and oil is flowing, you kick the can down the road and you don't make the changes that need to be made, that involve taxation, that involves removing the subsidies and all kinds of other entitlements.

Now, this is where we'll see.

If he holds the line and doesn't succumb to the easy kind of "throw money at people to keep them quiet" -- If he doesn't succumb to that, then he's serious.

>> Now, let's go back to the Biden trip itself.

You know, you say that the Americans didn't get anything from the Saudis.

The one concrete decision that was made, it's small, but it's symbolically important.

And there've been a number of them from around the region.

Of course, Biden's plane came directly from Israel, and the Saudis have said that they're opening airspace to everyone that's licensed, meaning that the Israelis can now fly through Saudi airspace.

That actually seemed like a real policy shift.

>> Well, I would describe it as crumbs, giving crumbs to Biden because that was already baked into the Abraham Accords, into the agreements that they had made with the Trump administration.

If you remember, Israeli airplanes could fly and were flying over Saudi Arabia to go to the UAE and to Bahrain and to India.

Those are the three countries that they'd given permission to.

They just now opened it up in return for, you know, an Israeli agreement, which, again, was also baked in earlier for the Tiran Island, which is that island that is between Saudi Arabia and Sinai, Egypt.

All of that had been agreed to before.

So, you know, it was -- I see it as cosmetic.

I don't see it as substantive.

>> And of course, it does not include the Israelis and the Saudis having an agreement to open diplomatic relations formally.

The Saudis have been saying privately they weren't ready to do that.

Why aren't they ready to do that?

There's so much engagement happening between the two countries.

>> I think there is a sense that the Saudi public -- and you have to remember this is a -- although it's an absolute monarchy, it has a finger on the pulse of its own public.

It is a kind of like a tribal political structure.

And they feel that their public is not ready for that yet.

And I think they will not do it until something is given to the Palestinians, something that is, you know, respectable.

But, you know, look, the Saudi-- the Saudi-Israeli relationship is going to get warmer and warmer as the Iranians, you know, increasingly decide that, you know, both these countries and the regimes of both these countries need to be toppled.

Iran has been the single most important factor in bringing these countries together, and that's not changing.

>> What do you think the implications are for the Saudis if and when the Americans and Iranians make it clear that they cannot come back to the nuclear deal?

>> I don't think the Saudis or the Israelis, for that matter, are very keen on the JCPOA, on the nuclear agreement with the Iranians, because they feel that there aren't substantial teeth there.

There isn't enough there.

And, in fact, with the withdrawal of the sanctions, the Iranians will get lots of money and then they'll do more.

They'll, you know, spread more mayhem through proxies in the region.

>> I guess you could argue that even though there weren't many concrete accomplishments from the meeting, that the Saudis are moving in a direction broadly that is more aligned with U.S. national interests, both in the region and more broadly in terms of the countries that they engage with.

And so, I mean, to the extent that's the case, you would expect that there would be a warming of relations between the two countries.

>> Yeah.

I mean, I think the Saudis are a status quo power.

They're not a revolutionary power like Iran is.

They're very keen on stability in the region.

And this has very concrete implications.

So right now, for instance, as you know, the price of wheat and barley and so on has gone through the roof because of the war in Ukraine.

So what the Saudis are willing and able to do alongside the other GCC countries is to give money, lots of money to the Egyptians and to the Jordanians and to the Sudanese and other countries that need money to buy foodstuffs to feed their own people, including Yemen, by the way.

And so the single largest threat to stability in the region are bread riots across the region.

And this is where the Saudis can play a hugely important role in subsidizing the food because because bread is subsidized in these countries.

So I think the Saudis are on the same page with the Americans here.

And this meeting basically puts a lot of the kind of virtue signaling that was going on before over values and human rights.

It basically puts an end to it and says, "Look, we have core strategic interests in this region.

This country is really important for the United States.

We have to go back to business as usual."

>> Bernard Haykel, thanks so much for joining us.

>> It's a real pleasure.

Thank you.

♪♪ >> MBS has made several reforms in Saudi Arabia that have improved the lives of women.

But the fight for freedom has come at a cost for some female activists.

"GZERO World's" Alex Kliment has the story.

>> This video shot in 2014 shows an act of civil disobedience.

Loujain al-Hathloul is behind the wheel, attempting to cross into Saudi Arabia, which at the time was the last country on Earth to prohibit women from driving.

In 2018, that changed.

Women can now drive.

>> It's our right, finally.

We took it.

>> Some have even started racing in rallies out in the country's sprawling deserts, all thanks in part to Loujain.

But at the time, Loujain herself could not celebrate.

Weeks before the driving ban was lifted, she was arrested in the United Arab Emirates, flown to the Saudi capital of Riyadh and jailed for her activism.

She spent more than a thousand days in prison where she says she faced violence, torture and threats against her life.

Her family, including her youngest sister Lina, fought tirelessly for Loujain's release.

>> My sister was imprisoned, and at the very beginning, of course, we did really not know what to do, how to act.

MBS was doing all these tours in the world.

He was applauded.

After a couple of months, when we found out that my sister was actually being tortured and that she almost died during torture, that's when we realized that silence is not an option.

We have to be Loujain's voice.

>> Loujain was released from prison on probation in 2021, but rights groups say she is far from free.

Lina, who has not seen her sister since 2017, just released a children's book based on Loujain's story.

>> We had this idea of, you know, bringing Loujain's fight of driving in an analogy in a magical way.

Loujain, a little girl, who lives in a world where only boys are allowed to wear their wings and fly to a colorful world.

And this is exactly Loujain's story.

And so I really want kids to really know that, you know, when they feel that there is injustice, they can say it out loud and they can win it, basically.

>> U.S. President Joe Biden's recent trip to the kingdom has angered human rights advocates, including those at Dawn, a nonprofit founded by Jamal Khashoggi shortly before his gruesome murder in 2018.

The group's executive director, Sarah Leah Whitson, says MBS's tight grip on power has led to unprecedented levels of political repression.

>> The important message that Loujain's arrest sent was that "you subjects in this country are not allowed to tell me what they want or what you want me to do.

I decide.

I am an absolute monarch.

You are not allowed to have an opinion about what I should and shouldn't do."

>> For "GZERO World," I'm Alex Kliment.

♪♪ >> And now to "Puppet Regime," where MBS offers Vladimir Putin some welcome advice.

>> Oh, my God.

Hey, you, been a while.

How's it going?

>> Well, I will not lie to you, MBS, even though it's hard for me to stop.

But things have been tough.

>> Oh, so I've heard.

>> I don't understand.

This was all supposed to be over by now.

And don't get me started on sanctions and lost business.

>> Oh, I thought that'd be kind of awkward to bring up, so... >> For once, I'm shirtless not because I want to be, but because J.Crew does not do business in Russia anymore.

>> Oh, I love J.Crew.

The new sailboat print carpenter pants are so flames.

>> So flames.

But tell me, how do you do it?

>> Do what?

>> One moment you are Biden's pariah.

Now he's willing to forgive the fact that you invaded a neighbor, committed war crimes, killed a journalist.

>> Yesterday's news, babe.

>> Can you teach me?

>> Teach you what?

>> How to get away with murder.

[ Dramatic music plays ] >> Oh, I've always pictured myself as an autocrat Tony Robbins.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Here we go.

>> Okay, I'm listening.

>> Okay, step one.

Be more subtle about your evil plans.

>> Subtle?

What do you mean, subtle?

>> Uh, uh, step two, have something everyone else absolutely needs and can't live without.

>> But I have that.

>> Okay, don't interrupt the teacher while he's talking.

Step three, when it comes to pissing off the West, you just got to pick your invasions better next time, man.

They care about some countries more than others.

>> Wait, why?

>> It's pretty brown and white.

Anyway, look, I gotta get going.

I'm late to this party in D.C. and -- >> What party?

>> Uh... [ Clears throat ] I wasn't supposed to tell you, but look, it'll probably be pretty lame.

See ya!

>> What party?

>> "Puppet Regime"!

>> That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

And if you like what you see, you want to hang out with the Saudis -- everybody does -- why don't you check us out at gzeromedia.com?

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by...