2 weeks Ago By Thilina Walpola
The transformation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from a puritanical theocracy to an aspiring architect of global peace is one of the most paradoxical and politically engineered evolutions of the modern era. Far from the deserts where Wahhabism first struck its austere roots, the Kingdom now positions itself as a mediator between global powers, a patron of modernity, and a crucible of cross-cultural aspiration. Yet beneath the glistening architecture of NEOM and the diplomatic smiles of peace summits lies a stratified narrative—one obscured by revisionist theatre and gilded silence.
Saudi Arabia’s foundation in 1932 under King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud was not merely a unification of tribal territories; it was a theological consolidation. The strategic pact with Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, brokered generations earlier, transformed Islam into an instrument of statecraft. As the CIA Handbook observed in 1972, “The Saudi Government is a monarchy based on a fusion of secular and religious authority, with the King at its apex.
” The same report stated, “The royal family dominates both the political and economic life of the country,” a candid admission of dynastic monopolization. Governance was less institutional than charismatic, mediated through familial bonds, tribal allegiances, and theocratic endorsement.” The Kingdom’s export of Wahhabism, particularly from the 1960s onward, became one of the most under-scrutinized forms of ideological colonization.
Flushed with petrodollars after the 1973 oil embargo—an embargo that King Faisal declared in defence of Arab dignity, stating, “Our oil is our weapon, and we will use it to protect our Arab rights”—Saudi Arabia embarked on a global proselytisation project. Mosques, madrassas, and clerical scholarships were funded from Islamabad to Jakarta, Sarajevo to Khartoum, shaping generations in an image that often diametrically opposed indigenous Islamic traditions. A lesser-known revelation from a declassified 1981 US State Department cable noted: “Saudi financial support to Islamic institutions in Southeast Asia has significantly altered the religious landscape, prioritizing doctrinal rigidity over cultural synthesis.
” The domestic reality, too, remained draconian under the veneer of religiosity. The 1979 Grand Mosque seizure by a fundamentalist group paradoxically catalyzed a more regressive clampdown, as the royal family tightened its alliance with the religious establishment to legitimize its authority. It is telling that King Fahd, who in the 1980s declared, “We will build the future without abandoning our past,” presided over an era where ministries functioned as courtiers rather than administrators.
As noted in a 1972 CIA internal report, “Much of the bureaucracy remains inefficient, with key decisions often bypassing formal channels and handled by royal intermediaries.” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) The paradox deepens when juxtaposing Saudi Arabia’s financing of foreign conflicts with its self-portrayal as a stabilizer. The Kingdom, directly or through proxies, has been implicated in the fomentation of conflict zones including Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Libya.
In Yemen, particularly, its military intervention since 2015 has left an indelible humanitarian scar. UN estimates suggest over 375,000 deaths, mostly from indirect causes. Despite this, Riyadh now courts global opinion as a peace-broker, hosting summits that purport to end the very conflicts it helped perpetuate.
This performative peacemaking is a diplomatic palimpsest, rewriting its culpability in real-time. Yet perhaps nowhere is the ideological volte-face more pronounced than under the stewardship of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). A man who rose to prominence not through military conquest or scholarly erudition but via internal court calculus and the invocation of modernist necessity, MBS has become the emblem of Saudi Arabia’s Neo-nationalist re-branding.
His statement in 2017 that, “We will not waste 30 years of our lives dealing with extremist ideologies. We will destroy them now and immediately” serves as both mea culpa and strategic distancing. It is a rhetorical exfoliation of the kingdom’s historical role in incubating the very ideologies it now condemns.
What makes this transformation most paradoxical is the simultaneous consolidation of autocracy. The same MBS who champions futuristic cities and cultural liberalization also orchestrated the arrest of dissenting clerics, feminists, and businessmen—a campaign sanitized by the euphemism of anti-corruption. The chilling assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul became a gruesome watermark of the state’s coercive architecture.
This contradiction was prophetically foreshadowed by King Faisal decades earlier, who once mused, “Injustice cannot be concealed, and one day it will speak.” In the global diplomacy, Saudi Arabia is no longer content with petrodollar influence; it now seeks epistemic legitimacy. The launch of NEOM, a city touted as the world’s first cognitive metropolis, symbolizes this ambition—yet, emblematic of the new Saudi state, it is erected upon contested land and enforced silence.
Beyond NEOM, the Kingdom’s financial outreach has extended to international media, sports, universities, and even Hollywood, buying not just partnerships but narratives. This is cultural laundering masquerading as soft power. Saudi Arabia’s overtures toward mediating the Russia-Ukraine conflict, brokering rapprochement between Iran and Arab states, and its increasing engagement with China and Israel signify not merely regional aspiration, but a superpower mimicry.
In February 2023, Riyadh hosted talks aimed at easing tensions in Sudan, while simultaneously continuing arms imports that fuel its own military-industrial complex. As a 2022 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute noted, “Saudi Arabia remains one of the top five global arms importers, despite its increasing involvement in peace dialogues.” This dualism is not new but now consciously choreographed.
The kingdom no longer hides its contradictions; it flaunts them as strengths. It wishes to be judged not by the tenets of liberal democracy, but by a self-fashioned rubric of efficacy, vision, and global brokerage. And in this, it has found unlikely endorsements.
Elon Musk, after touring Saudi ventures, declared them “an exciting vision for civilization”. Goldman Sachs and SoftBank speak of “unprecedented opportunities”. Even skeptics are drawn to the economic gravity Riyadh exerts.
But can a state undergo ontological transformation without historical accountability? Can it broker peace while archives of complicity remain sealed? The Kingdom’s diplomatic epistles, such as the declassified 1973 letter from the US President to King Faisal praising him as “a voice of wisdom and reason,” read today as documents of strategic appeasement, not genuine admiration. The phrase, “Your personal efforts to bring moderation and stability to the region are of great significance,” thinly veils the realpolitik that underpinned Western support for autocracy. Indeed, what Saudi Arabia seeks now is not reinvention but redemption.
It seeks to transmute petrodollar moral hazard into soft power prestige. In doing so, it exploits the cognitive dissonance of the global order: that authoritarianism, when efficient and well-funded, can be tolerated, even admired. And perhaps this is the Kingdom’s most radical export yet—a model where ideological elasticity replaces democratic legitimacy.
by Nilantha Ilangamuwa.
