Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud or MBS for short, is the likely heir to the throne in the Saudi ruling clan. As of 2018, he effectively has assumed the duties of Saudi Arabia Head of State in all but name from his ailing father, 85 year old King Salman, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

His name essentially translates to Mohammed son of Salman son of Ibn Saud. Ibn Saud was the founder of the modern state of Saudi Arabia on the Arabian Penninsula in 1925, supplanting the Hashemite dynasty which had ruled Mecca since the 10th century. The new kingdom was given diplomatic recognition by the UK in 1926 and the US in 1933. Since Saud's passing in 1953, successorship to the throne has passed sideways among six of his 45 sons (ibn Saud became king of the Arabian Penninsula by gaining the allegiance of rival tribal chieftans who cemented the alliance by offering a daughter in marriage). It remains unclear what legal claim MBS has to the throne.

Biden met with Saudi Prince MBS in July 2022 to beg for more gas.

At the outset of the US proxy war in Ukraine the governments of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates refused to take phone calls from US socialst premier Joe Biden, while they continued speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin.^[1] The Saudi government refused Biden demands to raise oil production, saying they had obligations with OPEC and Russia to not raise their oil production.^[2] Biden and Kamala Harris also were humiliated in Saudi Arabian media more than any other US presidents in history.^[3]

Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia to beg for oil in July 2022, where he met with Prince Salman, whom US intelligence described as responsible for the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, reversed what was supposed to be a "more principled" US policy under Biden than under President Trump. During Biden's 2020 election campaign Biden promised not to meet with MBS and force the Saudis to “pay the price, and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are.”

Jeddah 'peace' summit

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh reported in the summer of 2023 that Biden junta national security advisor Jake "the Snake" Sullivan took an American delegation to the 'second international peace summit' in August at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The summit was led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) who four years earlier was accused of ordering the assassination and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi for the Washington Post at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, for perceived disloyalty to the state.

The summit stars included MBS, Sullivan, and Volodymyr Zelensky. Russia was not invited to the summit. It included a handful of heads of state from the fewer than fifty nations that sent delegates. Reuters reported that Zelensky’s goal was to get international support for “the principles” that he will consider as a basis for the settlement of the war, including “the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the return of all Ukrainian territory.” Russia’s formal response came from Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov who called the summit “a reflection of the West’s attempt to continue futile, doomed efforts” to mobilize the Global South behind Zelensky. India and China both sent delegations to the session. An American intelligence official told Hersh,

referring to President Putin’s curtailment of Ukrainian wheat shipments in response to Zelensky’s renewed attacks on the Crimean bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland.^[4]