“Whither Saudi Arabia?” with guest Bernard Haykel, Princeton University.

A week before recording this episode, the U.S. Congress released a report directly naming Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the party responsible for the October 2018 murder of the Saudi columnist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi. The Biden administration has imposed a ban on several leading Saudi officials who were also implicated in that crime, but it has conspicuously avoided slapping sanctions on the crown prince himself, setting off a debate in this country about the proper U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia and with Saudi Arabia's leaders. MEI Faculty Director Tarek Masoud sat down with Professor Bernard Haykel of Princeton University to discuss Saudi Arabia, its leader, and the future of U.S.-Saudi Relations.