The Khashoggi case is a crisis for the US-Saudi ties

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This could be the moment when Saudi Arabia finally loses Washington. During the weekend, Turkish officials told my colleagues that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who has been missing since he joined the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week, was murdered by a Saudi team of 15 members sent to kill him. According to a US official informed by his Turkish counterparts, Khashoggi's body was probably dismembered, removed in cardboard boxes and flown out.

The claims claims sent a jolt through the US capital, which is a traditionally friendly territory for Riyadh. Khashoggi, 59, had just moved to the United States in voluntary exile. He wrote articles for the Washington Post's opinion section and was a friend of many American intellectuals and journalists.

If his assassination is confirmed, this could result in a decisive change in the way the United States deals with Saudi Arabia. Leading Republican and Democrat legislators warned about reports of Khashoggi's death and threatened repercussions if they were true.

The Saudi authorities have vehemently denied the accusations that they were "baseless allegations" and said a team of Saudi investigators had arrived in Istanbul to assist the Turkish investigation into Khashoggi's disappearance. Saudi officials in Istanbul have taken a team of journalists inside the consulate in order to prove their innocence. At the same time, information in the Saudi media has attempted to discredit the accounts of Khashoggi's fiancée, who for the first time reported his disappearance Tuesday.

No Turkish official has yet publicly confirmed the death of Khashoggi. In a speech on Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan only said that the mystery was "very, very upsetting" and that he "was pursuing" the case.

But many Turkish officials seemed confident in the assessment that the Saudis had committed the murder. "There is concrete information; this will not remain an unresolved case, "said Yasin Aktay, advisor to Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, in an interview with CNN Turk on Sunday.

At the time of writing, the Trump administration has not responded to the charges.. State Secretary Mike Pompeo, as well as State Department spokesman Heather Nauert, spent the weekend on a mission to the Korean peninsula. President Trump has not posted any tweets about Khashoggi. This is not surprising: while Trump and his lieutenants regularly point to Iran's "evil" acts in the Middle East, they allowed and ignored the abuses committed by the Saudis.

Since he became heir to the throne last year, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, has touted his plans for reform, promising to liberalize his country and deserving the applause of his country. 39, a large number of American commentators. However, the de facto reign of MBS has also seen it terrorize its rivals and arrest many feminist activists and civil society, some of whom risk the death penalty. Analysts say it's part of MBS's need to further consolidate its power.

"He wanted everyone to understand that women were allowed to drive, not because they had campaigned, but because their leaders had issued a decree," wrote Lindsey Hilsum, the international editor of the channel. British Channel 4 News. "The point was clear: civil disobedience will not yield any results. the changes will come only from submission to a benign monarch who will decide what is best. "

Trump is not bothered by the monarchical excesses in Riyadh. During a visit there in 2017, Trump celebrated the Saudis as loyal friends who would join the White House in trying to confront Iran. He has also repeatedly praised the Saudis' willingness to pay tens of billions of dollars worth of US military equipment.

But in Congress, the apparent white card that the White House has given to the Saudis is causing more and more concern, especially as the United States continues to support the bloody intervention led by the United States. Saudi Arabia in Yemen, which is making more and more civilian casualties.

"Legislators on both sides of the aisle, suspicious of Saudi religious extremism and its historical links to terrorism, have recently criticized Saudi actions in Yemen and in its country," wrote my colleague Karen DeYoung. "Last month, the government deterred the government from halting military sales and assistance to the kingdom. The world's largest buyer of US defense equipment and a key White House partner are planning to bring Iran back on track and forge an Israeli-Arab Alliance conflict. "

If the alleged assassination of Khashoggi is confirmed, this political examination will only deepen. And if the American public may not be disturbed by the disappearance of a Saudi journalist, the case of Khashoggi may blur all discussions on US-Saudi relations in Washington. US commentators who have had extensive talks with the Crown Prince as part of Riyadh's public relations campaign earlier this year have already sounded, demanding concrete action.

The assassination of Khashoggi by his violence sent an alarming message to other Arab dissidents in the Middle East. Although Turkey has atrocious journalists, Istanbul has become a sanctuary for opponents in exile from the regimes of the region. The disappearance of Khashoggi – who, in his column for The Post, was a thoughtful and constructive critic of Saudi leaders – suggests that other critics might not be as comfortable as they think.

This seems to be the goal of MBS and his father, King Salman. "Their foreign policy is based on a single doctrine: to establish the supremacy of Saudi Arabia in order to make it the sole arbiter of Arab affairs and the main point of entry of all the international powers in the region. Madawi al-Rasheed, a University and Saudi-based Saudi government critic, wrote in a new collection of essays on the kingdom.

"All the Saudis I know are terrified to read this, openly or secretly," tweeted Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch. "It really means that the Saudi government can kill any of them, no matter where." No escape. And that's exactly what MBS asks them to think. "

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