American journalist Karen Elliott House has been going to Saudi Arabia for nearly 50 years. She has had a firsthand view of the kingdom’s evolution, plus conversations with different kings, Jamal Khashoggi, Jared Kushner, Saudi religious police, businesswomen…and of course Crown Prince MBS.

Her book The Man Who Would Be King: Mohammed Bin Salman and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia , is able to give both a historical view of the kingdom and a close-up of the (often ruthless) remodelling underway today. What is left for the future to tell is whether MBS is a visionary reformer or someone who dwindled away the last of his nation’s black gold.

It is the juggling of Israel and Iran that is his biggest challenge, with any miscalculation putting at risk even his rule. In 2023, as Saudi Arabia re-established diplomatic relations with its bête noire , he explained to a shocked House that he was just facing up to the reality that there “isn’t a high chance” of US intervening in Iran. That highly unlikely thing has since happened, and it may upend MBS’s plans just as much as Oct 7 did.

Then, he was on the verge of achieving his dream of diplomatic relations with Israel. This was about 1) seriously upgrading security in West Asia, 2) pairing Israeli science and Saudi money to create a technological powerhouse in Neom, a futuristic city that would 3) provide a key logistics hub connecting Asia to Europe. Centrepiece of his Vision 2030, the Neom project is now unravelling.

MBS’s grandfather Abdul Aziz founded the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia after consummating 200+ marriages, to create the Al Saud as a “supertribe”. King Salman is the sixth of Abdul Aziz’s sons to rule, and his sixth son will take over next, if things go as MBS plans. But will they?

Yes, competing centres of power have been crushed, and young people are mesmerised by the periodic unveiling of gigaprojects, which promise them super modernity and prosperity.

But it all also recalls to House the poem Shelley wrote about the crumbled statue of once-powerful Pharaoh Ramses II: “And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains round the decay of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

A more lasting legacy in the sands of Neom depends on a post-oil economy. Right now, the kingdom itself guzzles the fourth highest amount of oil behind US, China, and India, despite a tiny fraction of these nations’ populations. And, tellingly, Saudis only account for 21% of total employment in their private sector.

Women’s empowerment has really powered recent economic growth. Still, as House has said in an interview, while MBS wants to move the economy towards AI and high-tech, young people do not have these sophisticated talents and often end up being some kind of a glorified tour guide somewhere.

Most importantly, the book quotes a retired US intelligence official who has served in both Saudi and Iran: “MBS wants to rearrange the living room furniture but he can’t do so during a hurricane.” His top priority has been avoiding a wider war in the region, but that could yet be what ruins all the effort to modernise his country.

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