The Hoover Institution hosted "Saudi Arabia in Crisis" on Wednesday, November 7, 2018 from 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST.
Saudi Arabia is at a moment of crisis. The gruesome murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul has dominated headlines worldwide leading to unprecedented calls in Washington from policy makers and experts for the United States to punish its longtime ally. A relationship that was forged by President Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz Al Saud in 1945, and which withstood crisis after crisis from the 1973 oil embargo to the 9/11 attacks, seems for the first time in doubt.
But the story of Saudi Arabia cannot be simply reduced to the events of last month. For the past few years, Saudi Arabia has been undergoing an unprecedented change led by its Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman. From the exclusion of powerful branches of the royal family, lifting the ban on women, leading an aggressive foreign policy to an economic vision intended to release Saudi Arabia from its dependence on oil, the Saudi Arabia that the world has known is changing fast.
To help explain Saudi's domestic changes, the economic challenges it faces and their impact on the U.S. Saudi relations, Hoover's Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies, Samuel Tadros joined Elliott Abrams, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Simon Henderson, the Baker Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Dr. Karen Young, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Panelists:
Samuel Tadros, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Elliott Abrams, Senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations
Simon Henderson, Baker Fellow & Director, Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at the Washington Institute
Karen Young, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
