Book Review: Blood and Oil — a geopolitical thriller on Machiavellian crown prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman

Blood and Oil: Mohammed bin Salman’s Ruthless Quest for Global Power (2020), written by Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck, is a geopolitical thriller about surveillance, corruption and murder. Published by John Murray, this book aims to demystify Saudi Arabia’s 35-year-old crown prince for a Euro-American audience conditioned to stereotypes about the Middle East. In the process, it also reveals the hypocrisy of the United States, which brands itself as a champion of democracy but has no qualms in making shady deals with authoritarian regimes.

Based in London and New York, where they work for the Wall Street Journal, the authors describe themselves as “investigative reporters who focus on money -- how it’s spent, where it flows, and what it’s used for.” Following this trail helps them build a complex and gripping portrait of MBS -- the scion, the politician, the businessman, the technology geek, the aesthete and the narcissist. What makes their book a pleasure to read is the rich context they provide because circumstances and choices have played an equal part in enabling the ascent of MBS.

Unlike many other princes in his extended family who spent their youth vacationing or pursuing higher education in the US and Europe, MBS decided to stay by his father’s side in Saudi Arabia itself. He used this time and opportunity to learn “about the frailties of his rivals within the royal family.” His character was shaped by an early fascination with Niccolò Machiavelli as well as Alexander the Great, and he grew up talking about “Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, men who built enduring legacies by focusing on results and being shrewder than their competition.”

The authors skilfully use this information to understand the workings of his mind. In this book, MBS comes across as someone who knows that petulance alone cannot get him what he wants. He wants to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy and reduce its traditional dependence on oil. He wants to be seen as a supporter of women’s rights. How does he go about this? His power depends on striking a balance: securing his legitimacy among conservative clerics and members of his own clan, and branding himself as a reformer in the West and among Saudi youth. At the same time, he wants them to know that dissidents will be crushed.

According to the authors, when MBS was barely 31 years old, he had realised that “things like bombing Yemen and promising economic renewal helped, but none was more important than proving he could be the man to revitalize the strained US-Saudi relationship.” Therefore, he focused his energy on earning the trust of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, wooing CEOs in Silicon Valley, becoming the darling of American media, and also unmasking his Twitter critics through the use of “cutting-edge Israeli spy technology” and good old bribery.

There is no doubt about the fact that MBS is depicted as a tyrant in this book. This is most evident in Hope and Scheck’s narration of the way he held three hundred members of the Saudi royal family captive for months at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh. However, the authors also highlight some softer aspects of his personality, which might strike readers as surprising or unusual because they make him appear quite ordinary and more like other men his age. MBS likes watching Game of Thrones, playing the piano, eating fast food, and partying.

If this book is anything to go by, MBS booked an island in the Maldives for a whole month in 2015. He was joined by male friends and relatives from Saudi Arabia. 150 young women from Brazil and Russia were flown in to entertain them. The resort staff were forbidden from bringing smartphones to the island because MBS didn’t want to be photographed or “seen in the same light as the famously spoiled princes of his generation.” Before a local publication got wind of this news, and the party wound up within a week, MBS managed to climb onto the stage during a show by Dutch DJ Afrojack, take over the DJ table and play records of his choice.

How did the authors research this book? Apart from looking at financial filings and confidential government records, they interviewed a large number of people who have interacted with MBS. Their geographical location was significant because informants who felt uncomfortable speaking openly about MBS at home “for fear of being electronically surveilled or simply observed having meetings with suspicious people” were far more forthcoming with details about MBS in conversations set up during foreign trips.

Scared perhaps of meeting the same fate as Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist whose critique of the MBS regime resulted in a brutal assassination, many of the interviewees agreed to speak only under the condition of anonymity. The authors had to establish veracity by finding multiple people who had experienced or witnessed the same events. The anecdotes narrated in the book were constructed from recollections and “as often as possible, backed up by emails, legal documents, photographs, videos, and other records.” This is brave, rigorous and commendable work.

(Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, educator and researcher who tweets @chintan_connect)