Since the past month, I have been reading all over the news this particular event about the death of the Washington Post’s columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi pundit who was a notable critic of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and his reforms. According to The Guardian (one of its recent articles on the matter), both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are conducting an investigation to determine the ultimate culprit of this situation.
Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Turkey, where he was going to do some paperwork because of his recent marriage. After that, and according to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s side, Khashoggi was strangled and then dismembered inside the consulate. Then, his body is said to have been dissolved in acid.
This is a very grisly situation indeed. Everything points out at the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite Saudi’s investigators saying that he didn’t know anything. From the Turkish side and the global outcry against this situation, we hear that not only was the crown prince updated about this situation prior to the magnum event, but also he is said to have given direct orders to murder the journalist Khashoggi.
From the United States standpoint, a debilitated and less-credible Saudi Arabia isn’t good for their geopolitical scene. Since the crown prince’s father has Alzheimer’s disease, Mohammed bin Salman is actually the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and he has put forward many economic and political reforms, including letting women drive vehicles, the opening of Saudi Arabia’s economy, among other things. However, his ruling is far from perfect: despite his charismatic behavior, during his time governing the country, Saudi Arabia has entered into conflicts of different nature–as for instance the Qatar diplomatic relations crisis, the situation with the Lebanon’s “former” prime minister and the Saudi intervention in Yemen with them at the head of a coalition against the Iran-backed Houthis.
Despite recent American withdrawal from the Yemen War in the form of refueling Saudi aircraft, the United States is interested in Mohammed bin Salman safe withdrawal, as well, of this situation.