Matthew Kaminski is editor-at-large, writing regularly for POLITICO Magazine on American and global affairs. He’s the founding editor of POLITICO Europe, which launched in 2015, and former editor-in-chief of POLITICO. He previously worked for the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, based in Kyiv, Brussels, Paris and New York.

RIYADH — The sudden collapse of the Assad regime in Syria opens the way to a new Middle East. This path will have to go through Saudi Arabia.

A lot has to go right to realize the eternally dashed dream of a region at peace and prosperous. Including in the country that has been one of the most conservative, repressive and, despite its wealth, inefficiently run places in the region. But there’s a simple reason why Saudi Arabia might be part of the solution: The kingdom is embarked on the most radical transformation in its history. It wants to modernize its economy and society. It isn’t looking to become an Arab superpower. The most overt threat to those plans isn’t from within — dissent isn’t allowed. It is from the many sources of instability across the region, like Gaza, Syria and, above all, Iran.

The Saudi Arabia you encounter today wants these fires to be put out as soon as possible. In the meantime, it acts as if they don’t exist. As news from Syria and Gaza dominated global headlines, the conversation here focused on other matters. An ultramodern driverless metro, the world’s longest subway system, opened last week. Jennifer Lopez, in a plunging sequined body suit, headlined a fashion show/concert “ode to the female figure” put on in Riyadh by the Lebanese designer Elie Saab. Later this week, Hollywood’s glitterati are coming in for the Red Sea Film Festival. On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia won the right to host the 2034 soccer World Cup.

This, in a couple of nutshells, is today’s Saudi Arabia, as transformed with a firm hand by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“Like China on steroids,” one diplomat quips.

“There is this sense that they don’t want anything to screw up the good things that are happening in their own country,” adds another.

Riyadh is disorienting. The conversations you have, the public interactions, images that come at you are so … normal. As if you were in Singapore, Seoul or Stockholm. Until you remember where you are: a film festival in a place where a decade ago cinemas were closed and public executions on Riyadh’s “Chop Chop Square” passed for mass entertainment. Forget about J.Lo. Saudi women, fashionably........

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