The Cock-up to End All Cock-ups: The Butchering of Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Denialism and the Crown Prince ‘Goes Rogue’ Again
If you play with fire, you get hurt in Saudi Arabia. Nobody knew that better than Saudi-born U.S-based Washington Post journalist and dissident of the Saudi regime, Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi knew the risks of opening his mouth. However, curtailing one’s freedom of speech as a fundamental human right is not an option when you’re a journalist. Khashoggi paid the ultimate price. He lost his life somewhat unexpectedly and in the most brutal of ways.
As the world now knows, Khashoggi mysteriously disappeared after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on 2 October 2018. He was there to sort out the required paperwork for his upcoming marriage to Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz. He never left the Consulate, and the whereabouts of his dismembered body remain unknown. The ‘Khashoggi Crisis,’ has sparked on-going international condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s blatant denial and subsequent ‘cover-up’ of the gruesome killing of one of its own. No doubt, this is the biggest scandal to rock a supposedly ‘reforming’ Saudi Arabia, since the fallout from 9/11. What happened to Khashoggi has led to the Mother of all cover-ups. Whether the Saudi’s want to acknowledge it or not, global fallout from this catastrophe has the potential to dismantle the Saudi Royal juggernaut. If not entirely.
The Saudi Kingdom has continued to deny all allegations it was involved in the botched killing of Khashoggi, instead, pointing the fat-finger-of-blame elsewhere. It still claims it was a “rogue operation” carried out to undermine their integrity. The rest of the world thinks otherwise. Incessantly conflicting accounts of what happened inside the Saudi Consulate in Turkey, have manifested on the back of intense global pressure for transparency and accountability. It’s highly unlikely we will ever know what happened to poor old Khashoggi, on that fateful day.
According to BBC reports, the Saudi’s initially said Khashoggi left the Saudi Embassy alive on 2 October. Then retracted this statement two weeks later, declaring Khashoggi was, in fact, dead as a result of, a physical fight ‘gone wrong.’ Widespread scepticism has ensued. Alternatively, Turkish Officials have been outspoken in their belief Khashoggi’s murder was premeditated and allegedly, conducted by 15 Saudi Agents at the request of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) the Kingdoms’ most powerful de-facto figure. Moreover, Khashoggi’s arch-enemy.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has been extremely lukewarm with his responses claiming; “the individuals who did this did this outside the scope of their authority. There [was] [obviously] a tremendous mistake made, and what compounded the mistake was the attempt to try to cover up.” The plot continues to thicken. Albeit, whether or not MBS will survive the fallout from this political maelstrom. More recently, Turkish authorities vociferously stated Khashoggi was strangled then decapitated and dismembered. His body parts were then removed from the Saudi Consulate in small boxes to avoid detection.
Saudi Arabia has arrested 18 suspects in conjunction with the murder, further reassuring, they will face the full extent of the law. Turkey, on the other hand, wants the Saudi suspects extradited and tried in their country. Either way, the West wants answers. The on-going international backlash means sanctions could be imminent until Saudi Arabia comes clean on everything. We could be waiting an eternity for that to happen. Let’s be honest.
Khashoggi’s murder vis-à-vis political assassination certainly spells disaster for Saudi Arabia on many levels. CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen for one has said, the Khashoggi cover-up along with endless implausible accounts purported by the Saudi government, underscores the notoriously impetuous actions of MBS. Suffice to say, his destructive invasion of Yemen in 2015, has helped facilitate one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Furthermore, the Saudi-led invasion has caused untold human carnage via Saudi-led airstrikes, and a partial food blockade in the region has pushed 14 million Yemenis to the brink of famine. Tantamount to genocide through mass starvation.
The Trump administration is also under enormous pressure to end its support for the coalition forces, who are no doubt complicit in war crimes in Yemen along with the Saudi’s. Indeed, the Saudi façade is breaking, and Saudi denialism is starting to wear thin in the aftermath of the Khashoggi Affair. What is happening in Yemen is despicable. Saudi Arabia needs to be held accountable under international law, instead of, audaciously flouting the rules of militarised warfare. Blaming civilian casualties on the consequences of collateral damage when targeting military objectives only serves to sugar-coat the extent of Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations in the region, which are inexcusable.
However, MBS never seems to learn his lesson, does he? Most recently he initiated the execution of an Indonesian maid on death-row, for killing a Saudi employer in self-defence having endured repeated rape attacks. The Saudi Kingdom executed Tuti Turisilawati, without adequately notifying Indonesian Officials or her family. Once again, the Oil-rich Kingdom does what it wants when it wants and expects to be exonerated when the publicity dies down. Bloody outrageous if you ask me.
The Khashoggi murder, the on-going atrocities in Yemen and the latest killing of an Indonesian domestic worker without informing the appropriate authorities, could mean the end for MBS. At least the end of absolute unchecked power in the Kingdom. According to Al Jazeera, the return of Prince Ahmad bin Abdelaziz (the last remaining brother of King Salman), after six years of self-imposed exile, is cognisant of the dire situation now facing the Saudi Kingdom. Speculation is rife that Prince Ahmad is set to challenge or perhaps even replace MBS. Permanently. Who knows what’s going on behind closed doors though?
The best thing Saudi Arabia can do is learn how to master the art of transparency and learn fast, to end constant speculation. Hand over the suspects to Turkish authorities. Fully assist in the procedures of justice for Khashoggi and his devastated family. That means disclosing where the body or body parts are. End the War in Yemen now. Stop endless denying everything. Stop thinking you can get away with murder. Start being accountable and peaceable. Get rid of the Saudi Prince effective immediately. Finally, appoint a less impulsive less toxic leader to bring Saudi Arabia in line with the rest of modernity.
