Saudi Arabia using Stone Age methods to deal with its critics
What you need to know:
- The young prince had already earned a very negative reputation for his extreme recklessness and impetuousness.
If he thinks his country’s enormous oil wealth and support from Trump gives him the licence to do whatever crazy thing he wants, he is in for a shock.
Saudi Arabia has gone rogue. On October 2, a Saudi-born journalist who is a US resident, and a critic-in-exile of the Saudi royal family, Jamal Kashoggi, disappeared inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. He had gone there to get some paperwork done for his planned wedding to a Turkish lady. It is universally believed he was killed by a hit squad sent by 33-year-old Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the Saudi kingdom and the favourite son of the aged King Salman.
CHOPPING FINGERS
Reportedly, the assassins did something grotesque. First they tortured Kashoggi by cutting off his fingers (which of course are used to write), then they dismembered his body with a bone saw. The story has been trending big internationally ever since. The murder immediately drew in the two countries that were most affected. One obviously is Turkey, on whose soil the atrocity in the consulate happened. It is Turkey that has been orchestrating the leaks on the identity of the killers and the ugly details of how the killing was carried out.
Then there is the US. The issue there was that Kashoggi was a US resident, who was working on his citizenship application. What’s more, he was a contributor for the Washington Post, one of the two most influential newspapers in America (The other being the New York Times.) Naturally, there has been no respite in the US media’s aggressive coverage of the assassination.
KEY ALLIES
US President Donald Trump is most reluctant to slap down Saudi Arabia. Strategically, America relies on the oil-rich kingdom to stabilise global oil markets. Trump further sees the Saudis as key allies in his campaign against Iran, a country Saudi Arabia is absolutely paranoid about. The kingdom also boosts US arms manufacturers with billions in weapon purchases.
It is also rumoured Trump has personal business ties with Saudi princes. However, the US media, understandably, is crying for the Crown Prince’s head. More significantly, the US Congress is keen to inflict pain on Saudi Arabia, and is talking of imposing sanctions, which it has power to do.
PR FALLOUT
The White House may swoon over the Saudis, but ordinary Americans don’t have much affection for them. They don’t like their medieval Wahhabi ways, plus they acutely remember that out of the 19 perpetrators of the notorious 9/11 terror attacks on New York and Washington DC, 15 were Saudis. Even if Saudi Arabia somehow rides out this very dark diplomatic episode, the PR fallout it has suffered and will continue to suffer is terrible. Already, a major investment conference planned by the Crown Prince for this week has been hit by pullouts by global corporate giants, by the IMF, and by the US (alas), British, French and Dutch finance ministers.
EXTREME RECKLESSNESS
If Salman’s son thinks his country’s enormous oil wealth and support from Trump gives him the licence to do whatever crazy thing he wants, he is in for a shock. The Turkish and US intelligence services are understood to have concluded Prince Mohammed ordered the hit on Kashoggi. Indeed, there are enough clues from the composition of the reported hit squad that point at this. The young prince had already earned a very negative reputation in the Middle East and internationally for his extreme recklessness and impetuousness.
QATAR BLOCKADE
He has been behind some pretty dubious ventures ever since his dad elevated him as heir-apparent, bypassing more senior and mature royals. Three years ago he launched a misguided war in Yemen, which he is not winning despite his high-tech weaponry, but which has resulted in what the UN calls the worst humanitarian tragedy in the world. He then moved to impose an ill-thought blockade against neighbouring Qatar, bringing in absurd demands such as that the tiny but super-rich Persian Gulf state shut down the Al-Jazeera station.
WEIRD SCHEME
Turkey backed Qatar, and moved in troops just in case Saudi Arabia did something rash. As if that was not enough, the Crown Prince rounded up scores of his royal cousins who he locked up in a hotel, and then shook them down for billions of dollars on flimsy accusations.
Another weird scheme was when he virtually kidnapped the Lebanese prime minister and kept him in Riyadh before regional powers intervened. The prince’s latest whimsy was to boot out the Canadian ambassador, and cut off all ties with Canada, in a fit of anger after the Canadian Foreign Minister mildly criticised the detention of a Saudi woman activist.
COMMON FOE
Ironically, Saudi Arabia may come to rely most on the Arab world’s purported topmost nemesis — Israel — to bring relations with America back on keel. Israel enjoys influence with the US government in a way Saudi Arabia with her oil can only dream of. The quid pro quo for Israel is for Saudi Arabia to maintain the screws on Iran — a common foe.
