TEHRAN (FNA)- US President Donald Trump is finally admitting what the world community has been saying for weeks that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is behind the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.
In Trump’s words, “He is running things and so if anybody were going to be, it would be him.” He however goes on to claim that MBS had no advanced knowledge of the incident, and that “I really want to believe them,” though those denials are clearly losing credibility.
Few people doubt the fact that Khashoggi was killed by a 15-man kill team sent by Saudi Arabia to meet him at the consulate. The team included a number of members of the MBS's personal security team. But will this throw American plans in the Middle East into disarray?
1- Trump will still continue to subcontract policy in the region to Saudi Arabia and Israel as he lessens US commitments. But US forces are here to stay. They won’t leave the Muslim world alone. Trump says irrespective of the Khashoggi affair, American weapons will continue to flow into Saudi Arabia.
2- The “premeditated killing” has brought headaches for Washington in Yemen as well, where the United States is backing a Saudi-led bombing campaign against the poorest nation in the Middle East. MBS needs Trump and American weaponry and military support to continue his gross human rights violations. Despite the evidence and international pressure, Trump will make sure that will be the case for now.
3- MBS might (emphasis here) survive this crisis and might stay in power and become king, but he will be a permanently weakened and despised despot globally. He will show he is a solid US vassal by buying more American weapons, by pleasing Israel and Turkey, by repairing ties with Turkish ally Qatar, and by taking an even harder line against Iran, enemy number one for the Trump administration, or by enacting bogus reforms.
4- The taint of Khashoggi’s murder will be very hard to scrub from the hands of MBS - most definitely in the short to medium term and perhaps Trump will use this to milk Saudi Arabia. After decades of Saudi Arabia buying US weapons and enjoying Washington's protection, the regime won’t switch to another supplier such as Russia or China.
5- Khashoggi’s gruesome murder pales compared to the brutality and gross human rights violations Saudi Arabia is committing in Yemen in collaboration with the US and some NATO countries. The Saudis are deliberately preventing food and medicine from reaching areas where children are dying from starvation and disease. Their indiscriminate bombings are killing thousands of innocent civilians. The saddest part of this unfolding tragedy is that despite international pressure and condemnation over the butchering of Khashoggi, the US and other Western powers are still supplying the Saudis with the weapons they need to massacre the Yemenis.
6- The gruesome killing of the journalist is but a manifestation of how vicious and cold-blooded the Saudis can be. Western governments must remember that silencing a journalist by slicing him to pieces is not only an assault on the freedom of the press, but an assault on all human beings. The illegal war on Yemen defies any logic as well, and this all makes Western governments complicit in Saudi war crimes.
7- The Khashoggi episode provides the US the opportunity to change the dynamics of multiple conflicts in the region by taking a new initiative that can end the merciless war on Yemen and save the lives of millions; abandon the Wahhabi regime; stop entertaining the illusion that public outcry resulting from illegal sanctions could affect regime change in Iran; and improve its position on the Israeli aggressions. Sad to say, it won’t happen because Trump says so.
The lesson in all this is that the West does in no way care about the Muslim world. Western governments just want to sell their weapons and fuel conflicts so they can continue to plunder the region’s energy resources. All the reason why Muslims could use the Khashoggi episode to stop killing each other. Also the lesson from Yemen is that the way out of that humanitarian crisis is reconciliation and peaceful coexistence across the Muslim heartlands. Not content with Khashoggi’s murder, Trump will never make that happen.
Quite the opposite, in the mire of recent events, Trump will help the Saudis to sweep the episode under the rug, use his network of enablers and lobbyists to empower tyrant MBS, polish his image and turn in thought criminals to cover his tracks. As is often the case, political impunity will continue to empower the despotic regime and cover up its crime because enough money is being thrown at it. No wonder, the Khashoggi operation was conducted with such staggering incompetence. The tyrant of Riyadh was confident that Trump would help him to get away with the gruesome murder.
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