As the drama surrounding the disappearance and alleged savage butchering of the dissident Saudi journalist, Jamal Kashoggi, in the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Turkey, intensifies once again President Trump takes center stage as the world awaits his response. They need not hold their breath as he has already indicated that America leadership on morality has been sold for a one hundred and ten billion dollars arms deal, over a period of ten years. Even then Trump is not telling the truth as all the cognoscenti are valuing the defense deal at far far less. What he is probably trying to spin is that he does not sell a seventy year old reputation cheap - The Art of the Deal and all that.
Once again Trump is knee deep in controversy and while this disaster, for once, is not self inflicted his behavior and life long flirtation on the fringes has landed him in this mess. However the variables in this crisis may not be that easy to finesse as the players with an interest include Congress, the whole commercial world, the nations in the Middle East, Russia and China, America’s former allies in the Western world and of course the aggro Saudi’s themselves. It also focuses on how once again his own personal interests mesh with those of the United States of America.
TRUMP AND “FAKE NEWS”
The apparent assassination of a Washington Post columnist, who is a political refugee and an American resident, took place in a milieu where Trump has labelled the Press as the “Enemy of the People”, bullied them at his Nuremberg style rallies and claimed that any contradictory comment or criticism is “Fake News”. Even worse was an answer to Bill O’Reilly of Fox News when he questioned Trump’s love affair with Putin whom Reilly reminded him killed journalists and dissidents. - “There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers. Well you think our country is so innocent?”
In his CBS interview this week he wailed that prior to being elected the press treated him terribly and what he had most wanted when he became President was that they he would give him better coverage but instead it got worse. Added to this narrative is his love affair with murderous despots throughout the world, Putin, Duterte, and Kim Jung On. Many have even argued that the de facto young charismatic leader of Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed Suad, believed in view of the POTUS’S antipathy towards the media and affinity for political murderers he could chance this vicious attack. Perhaps this is why The Donald’s answer to Leslie Stahl that if the Saudis were behind the disappearance he would inflict, “severe punishment” and that there was a lot at stake as “this man was a reporter”, was taken with a pinch of salt in America.
However Trump would have to take many dramatis personae into his calculations other than himself before this was all over.
CONGRESS WEIGHS ON
About the only issue that the Republican Congress have excluded in their pact with Satan is letting America’s leadership as the world’s moral compass literally go to hell in a hand basket. They have already illustrated this in a bipartisan Senate vote on inflictiing sanctions on the Russians by ninety - eight votes to two. Promptly the Senate Foreign Relations Committee served notice with a unanimous motion calling on Trump to recognize that the disappearance of Khashoggi suggests that he could be a victim of a gross violation of internationally recognized human rights. They went further by calling for investigation of the highest ranking Saudi officials. The committee was acting in terms of the Magnitzky Act whereby the President has to respond to Congress within 120 days. The latter legislation allows for sanctions against officials for human rights violations. Marc Rubio has put down a marker that this alleged grotesque criminal act is not going to be passed over. The influential Lindsey Graham has threatened that if the allegations prove true that, “There will be hell to pay”.
If our Donald thought that his threading the needle by waiting before he would pass final judgement by threatening severe punishment but not removal of the arms deal would mollify the Saudis he had another think coming. Donald Trump Junior’s assertion that Khashoggi was a terrorist didn’t help the cause either. The Saudis saw matters as they were. They had been let down by their chief ally’s threats. They were not used to or interested in Trump’s “nuances and subtleties”.
SAUDI’S, THEIR MEDIA AND MSB REPLY
Saudi Arabia’s thirty year old crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud, affectionately known as MSB, and his clack were not about to react kindly to Trump and his high and mighty Congress. Trump would learn in short shrift that they could shout the odds and threaten even louder than him. Where they come from honor is what it is all about. What about the David and Jonathan friendship between the Trump crown prince son in law Jared Kushner and the real Crown Prince MSB? They were there for him big time when he was in deep deep financial trouble and The Donald himself with money galore when they needed it.
MSB’S Foreign Ministry issued a statement “emphasizing that they would respond to any measure against it with even a stronger measure. The kingdom’s economy has an influential and vital role in the global economy”. There were warnings of creating chaos and pushing the price of oil up to $200 a barrel. The State newspaper threatened to allow the Russians to set up a base in the Kingdom and drive the Middle East into the arms of Iran. Just in case the message wasn’t clear enough the report in the newspaper concluded, “If US sanctions are imposed on Saudi Arabia, we will be facing an economic disaster that would rock the entire the world”.
The King of Saudi Arabia, King Salman, called on the Turkish Government to establish a working group to investigate what had happened to Khashoggi. In so doing he put some distance between him and the darling and great hope of taking the Saudis out of the Middle Ages, MSB. In so doing he must have thrown some sort of life line to The Donald that maybe they would axe MSB and throw him under the bus. But one shouldn’t hold one’s breath as from the Saudis world view The Donald should have not mixed into their internal affairs. The fact that the Rihad stock market dropped seven percent in one day and MSB’s grand vision, Saudi Vision 2030 where with foreign investment the House of Suad would become a world powerhouse, was in the balance after years of planning could easily blamed on Trump abandoning them.
THE OTHERS
It appears that it doesn’t need much to unravel the whole American Middle Eastern alliance as Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, The United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain and Palestine put out government statements expressing solidarity with Saudi Arabia. This has to send shivers down the spine of Bibi Netanyahu who doesn’t need to be on the wrong side of the Arab Gulf Sates, Egypt and Jordan. He cannot say that he wasn’t warned time and again that Trump may end up being far more of a hindrance than a help
Then the former NATO allies Germany, France, and the United Kingdom issued a statement sharing “the grave concern expressed by others.” No longer is the USA part of the big moral four. The latter’s official attendance at MSB’s Vision 2030 was put in doubt. What was to be the showcase of the Middle East was now teetering. Saudi joining the world in the Middle East Davos like financial conference two weeks hence was put in further doubt by the withdrawal from it by several commercial, media and financial enterprises. The only consolation was that Trump’s Treasury Secretary Mnuchin hadn’t pulled out yet.
And none of this takes into account how the Russians and the Chinese are going to exploit this windfall of a weakening of American influence in the Arab world.
IMPACT ON TRUMP AND LOCAL SCENE
Trump who has a thousand lives could not have expected that the murder in Turkey of a Saudi journalist, that truthfully he had nothing to do with, could potentially overturn the apple cart. He has still not enough insight to realize the trouble he might be in. Trump is cheerfully doing the rounds of his Nuremberg style rallies that even Fox is not running anymore. He is basking in the reflected glory of McConnell delivering Kavanaugh. The Kavanaugh appointment has ensured that the GOP will hang onto the Senate but receive a bigger thrashing in the House. It is too early to access whether this will have any impact in the midterms and the only way it could is if it results in an almighty fight with the Republicans in Congress over sanctions on the Saudis. He is likely to cave on that issue if the allegations can be proved and wink at MSB and King Salman that he will still carry on the relationship.
The best The Donald can hope for is that King Salman axes MSB or that miracle of miracles Kashoggi pitches up. There is always the possibility that they cannot prove that MSB and the Saudis did it and then an uneasy period will follow between the House of Saud and the House of Trump. At the very least Jared will just have to break off with the other spoiled brat.
It would the irony of ironies if it the Saudi connection with all its financial improprieties, some of which are already spilling out, turned out to the POTUS’S Achilles heal rather than Russia. As for the Saudis maybe the chickens are finally coming home to roost. They have literally got away with murder in the past. Where did all the 9/11 attackers come from together with Osama? Who has sponsored twenty - two of the twenty - three world terrorist organizations? What about the genocide in Yemen….?
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Whichever way this incident is viewed the world will not be the same as a result of it. For the moment an innocent reporter is missing for two weeks and was seen going into the Saudi embassy and not coming out. The world awaits the spin, the gestures, the cover up and the rationalizations. For starters King Salman has offered the Turks the opportunity to search the Embassy and Trump is sending Secretary of State Pompeo off to speak to the King and offers that Kashoggi may have been assassinated by rogue killers…..
It really depends if the Turks can be bought off or not. They claimed they have evidence of the slaughter and spilled out the gory details. It is highly unlikely that that was bogus.
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