在其他任何一年，穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼都会准备迎接自己的高光时刻。10月26日本应是“未来投资倡议”（FII）的既定开幕日，这一年度峰会常在沙特首都举行，有时被称为“沙漠中的达沃斯”。这位王储通常会花一周时间与各国元首、金融巨头和其他显要人物握手寒暄，而这些人全都渴望与他的王国做生意。今年却并非如此。
IN ANY OTHER year, Muhammad bin Salman would be getting ready for his star turn. October 26th was supposed to be the scheduled start of the Future Investment Initiative (FII), an annual summit in the Saudi capital that is sometimes dubbed “Davos in the desert”. The crown prince usually spends the week glad-handing heads of state, titans of finance and other dignitaries, all of them eager to do business with his kingdom. Not this year.
也门境内受伊朗支持的民兵组织胡塞武装数周来一直向利雅得发射导弹和无人机。在发生一系列致命袭击后，机场实际上仍处于关闭状态。许多西方政府已警告本国公民不要前往这个王国。企业高管们担心酒店或其他场所可能成为袭击目标。经过数日商议，主办方于10月19日决定将活动推迟至明年。
The Houthis, an Iran-backed militia in Yemen, have spent weeks firing missiles and drones at Riyadh. The airport is still, in effect, shut after a series of deadly attacks. Many Western governments have warned their citizens not to travel to the kingdom. Executives were nervous that hotels or other venues could be targets. After days of deliberation, organisers decided on October 19th to postpone the event until next year.
十年前掌权时，穆罕默德王储曾下过几个大赌注。他赌自己能够击败胡塞武装；赌自己能够重塑沙特经济；还赌唐纳德·特朗普会证明是一个可靠的盟友。这些赌注如今同时落空。取消FII的决定，正是穆罕默德王储灾难之年的象征。他面临一系列相互交织的危机，而其中没有一个有现成的解决办法。
As he rose to power a decade ago, Prince Muhammad made a few big gambles. He wagered that he could defeat the Houthis; that he could reshape the Saudi economy; and that Donald Trump would prove a reliable ally. All of them have gone awry at once. The decision to cancel FII is emblematic of Prince Muhammad’s annus horribilis. He faces a set of interlocking crises, none of which has a ready solution.
沙特未能击败胡塞武装，但他们曾希望2022年达成的停火协议能够遏制威胁。相反，由于美国与伊朗之间更广泛的战争，这项休战协议今年夏天开始瓦解。胡塞武装在也门夺取了更多领土，并重创沙特阿拉伯。接近王储的人士认为，摆在面前的只有糟糕的选项。这个王国可以派遣地面部队投入一场血腥战争；继续一场不太可能成功的空袭行动；或者达成一项有助于巩固胡塞武装统治的协议。
The Saudis failed to defeat the Houthis, but they had hoped a ceasefire agreed in 2022 would contain the threat. Instead the truce began to unravel this summer because of America’s broader war with Iran. The Houthis have seized additional territory in Yemen and battered Saudi Arabia. People close to the crown prince see only bad options. The kingdom can send ground troops into a bloody war; continue a campaign of air strikes that is unlikely to succeed; or make a deal that helps cement Houthi rule.A long conflict will derail Prince Muhammad’s economic programme, which was sputtering even before 2026.
长期冲突将打乱穆罕默德王储的经济计划，而该计划甚至在2026年之前就已举步维艰。在公共财政承压之际，大型项目正被搁置。工资未能跟上通货膨胀的步伐。
Big projects were being shelved amid a strain on public finances. Wages have not kept pace with inflation.
年度外国直接投资仅为王储1000亿美元目标的三分之一左右。一年前，国际货币基金组织预计沙特经济在2026年将增长4%；如今该组织预计将萎缩3.3%。2027年能否反弹，将取决于中东是否会实现和平——而这又在很大程度上取决于特朗普。沙特王国原以为自己对他有影响力。它通过承诺在美国投资大得令人难以置信的金额来讨好他。
Annual foreign direct investment is only about one-third of the crown prince’s $100bn target. A year ago the IMF expected the Saudi economy to grow by 4% in 2026; now it expects a 3.3% contraction. Whether it rebounds in 2027 will depend on whether peace breaks out in the Middle East—and that, in turn, will depend largely on Mr Trump. The kingdom thought it had influence over him. It wooed him by promising to invest implausible sums in America.
它还同第一家庭做了些不光彩的交易，付钱给特朗普名下的高尔夫球场举办沙特资助的赛事，并向总统的女婿贾里德·库什纳投资20亿美元。这些都没能阻止他发动一场灾难性的战争。“他对任何人都不会长久忠诚，”一位人脉广泛的沙特人说。尽管沙特王国没有可靠的民意调查，但可以说大多数沙特人信任他们的政府。
It also made tawdry deals with the first family, paying Trump-owned golf courses to host Saudi-funded tournaments and investing $2bn with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law. None of that stopped him from embarking on a disastrous war. “He’s not loyal to anyone for long,” says one well-connected Saudi. Though there are no reliable public-opinion polls in the kingdom, it is fair to say most Saudis trust their government.
不过，一些人觉得过去几周令人不安：也门的战争造成了真正的混乱。然而自10月10日胡塞武装的导弹在利雅得机场炸死13人以来，穆罕默德王子基本上一直不见踪影。探访受害者和传递安抚信息的工作落到了部长们身上。一些西方评论人士开始质疑，这个危机四伏的年份是否对王储的统治构成存亡威胁。利雅得外交官们的看法是，这种说法言过其实。
Some have found the past few weeks unnerving, nonetheless: the war in Yemen has caused real disruption. Yet since October 10th, when a Houthi missile killed 13 people at Riyadh’s airport, Prince Muhammad has been largely invisible. It fell to ministers to visit victims and offer reassuring messages.A few Western commentators have begun to ask whether this crisis-filled year poses an existential threat to the crown prince’s rule. The view among diplomats in Riyadh is that such talk is overblown.
“七八年前他的处境要艰难得多，”一位西方使节说。当时王子还是新被任命的继承人，仍在努力巩固自己的统治。也门战争已是一场泥潭，对卡塔尔的封锁令美国不满，而当沙特记者贾迈勒·卡舒吉在沙特驻伊斯坦布尔领事馆内被杀害时，世界大部分地区都感到震惊。如今穆罕默德王子对权力的掌控要稳固得多：他排挤了对手，并将权力集中到自现代沙特国家缔造者阿卜杜勒阿齐兹国王以来任何沙特统治者都未曾有过的程度。
“He was in a much tougher place seven or eight years ago,” says one Western envoy. Back then the prince was a newly appointed heir, still trying to consolidate his rule. The war in Yemen was already a quagmire, the blockade of Qatar was upsetting America, and much of the world was horrified when Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, was murdered inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. Prince Muhammad’s grip on power is far more secure today: he has sidelined rivals and centralised power unlike any Saudi ruler since King Abdulaziz, the founder of the modern state.
尽管他有批评者，但没有人能真正组织起一场政变。他也没有受到盟友的多少批评。对也门近期局势升级的反应很能说明问题：就连长期批评这场战争的人现在也承认，沙特王国别无选择，只能作战。“我确实理解，这是一个不同于2018年或2020年的时刻。他们正面临胡塞武装的这些推进和火箭弹袭击，”本月在利雅得会见了王储的民主党参议员克里斯·墨菲说。
Though he has detractors, none could plausibly organise a putsch. Nor is he facing much criticism from allies. The response to the recent escalation in Yemen has been telling: even long-time critics of the war now acknowledge that the kingdom has little choice but to fight. “I do understand that this is a different moment than 2018 or 2020. They are facing these Houthi advances and Houthi rocket attacks,” says Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator who met the crown prince in Riyadh this month.
“我们应该认识到这一点。”不过，换个角度看，这对王储而言是一个更具挑战性的时刻。因为他早年的困境在很大程度上是咎由自取，所以更容易解决。到2021年，他正将沙特外交政策引向更务实的方向。他结束了对卡塔尔的封锁，并寻求与胡塞武装达成协议。就连拜登政府——其上任时曾承诺将穆罕默德王储变成“贱民”——也不情愿地赞扬了他的新方向。
“We should recognise that.”Seen in another light, though, this is a more challenging moment for the crown prince. Because the woes of his early years were largely self-inflicted, they were easier to fix. By 2021 he was steering Saudi foreign policy in a more pragmatic direction. He ended the blockade of Qatar and sought a deal with the Houthis. Even the Biden administration, which took office having promised to make Prince Muhammad a “pariah”, grudgingly praised his new direction.
今年则更难。最大的决定不在穆罕默德王储的掌控之中。他已敦促特朗普不要升级与伊朗的战争。如果总统无视他的意见，在11月中期选举后恢复轰炸，沙特官员担心王国将四面受敌：南有胡塞武装，北有伊拉克民兵，东有伊朗本身。他们有一个大国要保护——面积是法国的四倍——却没有多少防空拦截弹可用。在执政的头十年里，王储在推动沙特社会自由化方面取得了值得称赞的进展。
This year is harder. The biggest decision is out of Prince Muhammad’s hands. He has urged Mr Trump not to escalate the war with Iran. If the president ignores him and resumes bombing after the midterm elections in November, Saudi officials worry the kingdom will take blows from all sides: the Houthis to the south, Iraqi militias to the north and Iran itself to the east. They have a big country to protect—four times the size of France—and not many air-defence interceptors left to do it. In his first decade, the crown prince made laudable strides towards liberalising Saudi society.
女性可以开车。女性劳动参与率几乎翻了一番。在一个长期禁止娱乐的国家，音乐会和电影院如今已十分普遍。少数富裕的外国人甚至可以合法地小酌一杯。但沙特国家的核心几乎没有改变。
Women can drive. Female labour-force participation has almost doubled. Concerts and cinemas are now widespread in a country where fun was long verboten. A few well-off foreigners can even enjoy a legal tipple. But the core of the Saudi state has changed little.
其经济仍依赖石油收入，军队仍以保护政权而非发动战争为目的建设，外交政策仍依赖美国作为不可或缺的保护者。或许最终这些情况也会改变。麦加协议是与巴基斯坦和土耳其达成的共同防御协定，是寻找新盟友以取代不可靠的美国的努力。但这些变化需要时间。在第二个十年，穆罕默德王储的考验将是改变根基，而不仅仅是门面。
Its economy still depends on oil money, its army is still built to protect the regime rather than wage war, and its foreign policy still relies on America as an indispensable protector. Perhaps eventually those things will change as well. The Mecca pact, a mutual-defence agreement with Pakistan and Turkey, is an effort to find new allies that could supplant an unreliable America. But those changes will take time. In his second decade, Prince Muhammad’s test will be to change the foundations, not just the façade.