MBS already wants to modernize and liberalize Saudi Arabia. This is for economic reasons, and, I would guess, also because his macabre reputation is a drag when he's partying with his Western friends.
Any boycott that would get Saudi Arabia more humane government would be a good boycott. It just seems more likely that sanctions would wreck their economy and lead to a religious fanatic taking over.
No, he does want to turn saudi arabia into a secular democracy. He is just doing the bare minimal in order to gain legitimacy and investments/business. He is not a believer in human rights, democracy and religious freedom. He is literally a dictator and a murder.
He doesn't need to. Saudi Arabia doesn't give citizenship to foreigners. We don't want permanent foreigner migration like Japan and South Korea and other countries. 99% of the population is already Muslim. All foreigners are temporary workers on 1 year visas. They're just in KSA for doing their jobs. Their views never mattered in the past, now and will never matter in the future. They do their job contract and they leave. Lol what's so amazing about democracy. Look at America. Democracy means income taxes, giving citizenship to foreigners, bringing third world shithole refugee criminals, junkies and crap, having your government policies change way too much often, giving precedence to foreigners for jobs. No thanks! Saudi Arabia has a good small growing population of 20 million Saudi citizens. It's close knit, homogeneous, same religion, culture etc. Monarchy provides us all the benefits we need. Look at Kuwait, it tried having a partial democracy and fails miserably.
Mohammed bin Salman? He is probably a complex man, but by accident of history the only thing we know about him is the killing of Khashoggi and the gnarly details of the body disposal process.
In Saudi Arabia, if you're not someone he wants to torture or kill, you can enjoy increased religious freedoms, gender equality, and international ties.
It's a bit like Iran before the revolution: the Shah was liberalizing and modernizing his nation, while at the same using SAVAK to torture his opposition.
> In Saudi Arabia, if you're not someone he wants to torture or kill, you can enjoy increased religious freedoms, gender equality, and international ties.
Increased compared to taliban rule? Wow, thanks so much to the benevolent dictator for allowing a woman to go out without a male companion without being stoned. And thank the benevolent dictator for not having an interest in me specially. All praise the guy who could dismember many people but chooses to do that only to a couple, and who could imprison many, but does it mostly to his family and whoever he pleases.
If there were an overwhelming majority in Saudi Arabia who demanded the full set of human rights we have in the West, then it would be unconscionable to say anything positive about Mohammed bin Salman.
This quote is from a story from before Saudi women got the right to drive. The piece argues it was a common take:
Mashaal El-Maliki, a housewife:
"Female driving will destroy family life because it will give husbands a chance to know other women who (as drivers) will be free and without guardians."
The best path forward is whatever path is the shortest to making life bearable for liberal Saudis, but that doesn't end in conservative revolt (and deeper theocracy). When a considerable portion of a nation opposes basic freedoms, there are fewer viable options.
>the Shah was liberalizing and modernizing his nation
Quaint revisionism; in fact Mossadegh was already actually liberalizing and modernizing the nation while Pahlavi was turning it into a US/UK client state.
No leaders are 'ideal', but the only way you can equivocate between these two is taking it making a tacit assumption that reorienting the state apparatus and your economy towards the needs of foreign clients - and away from the enrichment of regular people at home - is good.
The concern I raise is that religious fanatics replace MBS. In that context, the relevant Iranian comparison is pre-1979 and post-1979. Post-1979 is a nightmare, a terrifying Twilight Zone episode. See:
In Saudi Arabia, MBS is probably better than a more fanatical Wahabist government. I gather the power struggle between the royals and the clerics is ongoing. Human rights progress would reverse under the latter.
There is "Not my problem" here, because one or way another it will be your problem within ten years, maybe five.
And for some people here and reading this, within a few months.
Your choices about what to work now on affect your future, in a very direct, literal, potentially fatal way.
That's the point.