“Saudi Arabia’s crown prince [Mohammed bin Salman] likely approved the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence report released [last] Friday…
“Shortly after the findings were released, the State Department announced a new policy, called the ‘Khashoggi Ban,’ that will allow the U.S. to deny visas to people who harm, threaten or spy on journalists on behalf of a foreign government. It also said it would impose visa restrictions on 76 Saudi individuals who have engaged or threatened dissidents overseas… The Treasury Department also announced sanctions against a former Saudi intelligence official, Ahmad Hassan Mohammed al Asiri, who U.S. officials say was the operation’s ringleader.” AP News
Read our prior coverage of US-Saudi relations and Khashoggi’s murder. The Flip Side
The right is divided between those who call for additional punishment for Saudi Arabia and those who caution that any further action would harm our strategic interests.
“When the world learned of Khashoggi’s death, there was a collective feeling of disgust and bewilderment that a high-profile member of the Saudi royal family would be foolish, reckless, and monstrous enough to use state resources to neutralize a prominent critic in a diplomatic facility. In the blink of an eye, a US foreign policy establishment typically in the habit of giving Saudi Arabia the benefit of the doubt could no longer do so…
“Khashoggi’s death laid bare the real Saudi Arabia: it wasn’t a special US ally as so many in Washington believed, but another hard-nosed, authoritarian state whose leadership has no hesitancy to use the power at its disposal to maintain its strength and eliminate rivals.”
Daniel DePetris, Spectator USA
“Why go so easy on MBS? The cold war has been over for 30 years and the U.S. no longer sees the Saudis as a bulwark against the Soviets in the Middle East. Also, oil imports from the Middle East have declined 30 percent in the last decade. And the Saudis have used their regional influence in recent years to start a dirty war in Yemen, tried an unsuccessful boycott of Qatar, and forced Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign. These have all proven to be missteps that damaged relations with the U.S.…
“Frankly, I find it incomprehensible that MBS is being allowed to walk. We sanction Putin and Kim Jong-un, so it’s not like we don’t sanction national leaders. The early hopes that MBS would begin reforming Saudi society have proven baseless. He’s just another Arab tyrant who murders his own citizens if they make him angry.”
Rick Moran, PJ Media
Others, however, argue that “Mr. Trump had a moral tin ear, but his support for the Saudis and Israel, and opposition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, helped pave the way for the historic Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab states. The Biden Administration should think twice about alienating the Saudis, who are rare U.S. friends in a dangerous part of the world… The Khashoggi report and sanctions send a message of U.S. disgust at an awful crime. But in a nasty and brutish world, the U.S. still needs partners like the Saudis.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“We must recognize that the crown prince is being lobbied heavily and lured with great temptation from Vladimir Putin to reorient the kingdom into Russia's geopolitical orbit. Were that to happen, it would give Putin vastly increased influence over global energy supplies and prices and a much-improved ability to play Saudi Arabia against Iran to its own advantage, causing increased regional instability. Put simply, the U.S. cannot afford to lose influence with the Saudis.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
“I can’t help but be frustrated at the wildly oversimplistic and unrealistic way that foreign policy gets discussed in our political debates, particularly presidential debates, and particularly Democratic presidential debates — when it gets discussed at all. During [the] Democratic debate in November 2019, the candidates competed to see who could sound toughest on Saudi Arabia, as if we had developed this complicated relationship with that regime over 70 years by accident…
“Maybe Americans have unrealistic expectations about what U.S. foreign policy can achieve, but it’s hard to blame them when so few of their aspiring leaders are willing to contradict those expectations. Presidents keep having to backtrack on their foreign-policy promises because they either didn’t do their homework and understand the consequences of those promises, or they did know them and chose to ignore them during the campaign.”
Jim Geraghty, National Review
The left urges the Biden administration to go further and take action against MBS directly.
The left urges the Biden administration to go further and take action against MBS directly.
“Mr. Trump knew [the information in the report] but had balked at publicly chastising one of the Middle East’s most powerful rulers, whom he regarded as a close ally in his feud with Iran and as a lucrative client for American arms. ‘Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!’ was the former president’s morally rudderless public response to intelligence that the crown prince in fact did have a role in Mr. Khashoggi’s murder… During his presidential campaign, Mr. Biden talked of far sterner measures…
“But when it came to penalizing the crown prince personally, Mr. Biden ended up in the same place as his predecessor. In effect, Mr. Biden acknowledged that relations with Saudi Arabia, an ally against the ambitions of Iran, a tacit ally of Israel, a trade partner worth tens of billions of dollars and an oil producer with the ability to seriously disrupt the world economy, were too important to American interests to risk by punishing the all-powerful prince.”
Editorial Board, New York Times
“It’s precisely because Saudi Arabia is so important that Biden should stand strong and send signals — now, while there is a window for change — that the kingdom is better off with a new crown prince who doesn’t dismember journalists. M.B.S. is the sixth crown prince Saudi Arabia has had over the last decade, and only one of them (King Salman) rose to become king. Two died, and two were deposed. If it becomes clear that Saudi Arabia will not have a workable relationship with the West if M.B.S. becomes king, perhaps we’ll see a seventh crown prince…
“M.B.S. poisons everything he touches. He kidnapped Lebanon’s prime minister. He oversaw a feud with Qatar. He caused the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. He imprisoned women’s rights activists. He has tarnished his country’s reputation far more effectively than Iran ever could… Even through the lens of realpolitik it’s a missed opportunity to help Saudi Arabia understand that its own interest lies in finding a new crown prince who isn’t reckless.”
Nicholas Kristof, New York Times
“The most charitable thing that can be said for President Joe Biden’s handling of the Khashoggi report is that he failed to manage expectations. Having promised to make Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman a pariah for the murder of the Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Biden can only clutch at his pearls, declaring that ‘it is outrageous what happened,’ while leaving the prince unpunished…
“It is true that Biden has deprived MBS of the direct access to the White House that he enjoyed under President Trump. Biden has also frozen arms sales to Saudi Arabia, suspended American military assistance to the Saudi-led Arab coalition fighting in Yemen and taken a firmer line with the kingdom on human rights. But all this preceded the release of the ODNI report, and cannot now be retroactively attributed to its findings. A more astute politician would have released the report before announcing those measures.”
Bobby Ghosh, Bloomberg
“Anticipating Biden’s stance, Saudi leaders took pre-emptive action. Prominent Saudi women’s rights campaigner Loujain al-Hathloul and the journalist Nouf Abdulaziz were recently freed from jail. Yet other leading women activists are still reportedly held. They include Samar Badawi, Nassima al-Sadah and Mayaa al-Zahrani, along with many other political prisoners. Symbolic, selective releases are not nearly enough. If the Saudi royals are determined to protect the crown prince rather than sack him, as he deserves, a broader relaxation of regime controls on democratic rights must be the west’s price for continued normal relations.”
Observer Editorial, The Guardian
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