Saudi Arabia’s de facto head of government, Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin ‘Abd al-’Aziz al Sa’ud, has gambled the survival of the House of Sa’ud on winning US support for the transformation of the Kingdom’s strategic fortunes. The commitment of some $200- to $350-billion in investment in, and purchases from the United States — including some $110-million of defense procurement over 10 years outlined during the visit by US Pres. Donald Trump to Riyadh on May 20, 2017 — was made during the visit by the Deputy Crown Prince (the King’s son, often referred to as “MBS”) to Washington on March 17, 2017. Trump White House sources had been unimpressed with the young Prince, who had engineered the Kingdom’s highly-expensive military intervention into Yemen, but were willing to accept his offer. The essence of the deal which Prince Mohammed reportedly felt that he […]