In Khashoggi Murder Case, Trump Is Torn Between 2 Tyrants

With "friends" and allies like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the Trump government must ask: who needs a real enemy like Iran in the Middle East? Almost as soon as Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a US legal resident and a contributor to the Washington Post, mysteriously disappeared at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in early October, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cleverly exposed the lies Saudi to humiliate them from a regional rival, keep the story in the headlines and thwart President Trump's attempts to rescue his administration's relations with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The scandal is now threatening the structure of the US-Middle East alliance and the Trump administration's strategy of isolating and containing Iran.

With carefully choreographed leaks, the Erdogan government continually undermined the shifting Saudi narrative that initially led Khashoggi to leave the consulate in good health, then died of strangulation in a fight with Saudi officials, then became a victim of a striking squadron. "Rebels". Even President Trump has described Saudi Arabia's explanations as "one of the worst in the history of cover-ups", and the latest version released on Thursday should not put an end to the crisis. The Saudis now claim that a 15-member intelligence and security team, many of whom have close ties to the Crown Prince, has been sent to bring Khashoggi home. Instead, the team leader would have made the immediate decision to kill Khashoggi with medication and then dismember his body to eliminate it.

A man carries a sign showing Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman and journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who describes the prince as a "murderer" and Khashoggi as a "martyr" in Istanbul.

Turkish officials, who say they have audio recordings documenting the murder, challenge the latest version. The capture team included an autopsy expert who allegedly took a bone saw and rushed to dismember the body. The audio, which the Turks shared with the United States and other allies, also captures the successful team leader who asks the superior to phone "his boss" to tell him that his mission is accomplished. US intelligence experts believe that the "chief" is almost certainly a reference to the crown prince, called "MBS", who exercises almost complete control over Saudi security and intelligence agencies.

Friday night, the Washington Post announced that the CIA had concluded with "great confidence" that MBS had personally ordered the assassination.

Erdogan called Khashoggi's death a "savage murder" that shocks "human consciousness".

Erdogan's irony in defending "human conscience" and protecting journalists is not lost on close observers, who point out that, under his increasingly autocratic rule, Turkey has become by far the most most prolific jailer in the world. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Turkey currently has more journalists behind bars than China, Russia and Egypt combined. In the World Press Freedom Index, published by Reporters Without Borders, Turkey now ranks 157th out of 180 countries. After a failed military coup in 2016 against his government, Erdogan also arrested tens of thousands of political opponents, cracking down on dissent and pulling the reins of power in Turkey more and more into his fist.

Erdogan speaks at Ankara airport about Khashoggi's assassination at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

"The assassination of Khashoggi gave Erdogan a huge influence in recovering the moral foundation and structuring the debate so as to reduce his regional rival, the MBS, and to create a gap between Washington and Saudi Arabia," Aykan said. Erdemir, former member of the Turkish Parliament. . who is a senior member of the Washington Foundation for the Defense of Democracy. What is lost in this framework is that Erdogan is an authoritarian Islamist leader who is trying to undermine the US-led liberal international order, jailing journalists and political opponents regularly, and participating in "diplomacy." hostages "." "With the United States, it continues to defy sanctions against Iran, undermines US military operations against ISIS in Syria and has devised a strategic focus on Iran and The crisis in Khashoggi has only made boldness and emboldened it. "

Khashoggi's death thus leaves the Trump administration divided into two tyrants. One of them would be responsible for the murder of a journalist living in the United States, as well as the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, in Yemen, where the Saudi army is pursuing a scorched earth campaign against the rebels supported by Iran. . The other, Erdogan, is a persistent criminal who defends human rights. He is hijacking Americans under diplomatic influence and increasingly aligning his country with American opponents, such as Russia and Iran. The administration's strategy to make MBS and Saudi Arabia the backbone of Iran's containment and to reach a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians is at stake. This strategy is based on a an exceptionally close personal relationship that Trump's son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, established from the beginning with MBS, which led Trump to make the decision to make Saudi Arabia the first country to be president last year .

"The Saudis have played an important role in the Trump administration's policy in the Middle East, mainly on the basis of the close relationship of the Trump family with MBS and the House of Saud, which is the type of family-to-family relationship with this country. Saudi royals. "But we do not expect a democratic republic like ours to conduct its foreign policy," said Eric Edelman, former US ambassador to Turkey and currently advisor to the Assessment Center. Strategic and Budget in Washington. "While I recognize that the Trump government has recognized Iran as the greatest strategic threat in the region, its strategy is now tied to a very reckless and impulsive deposit management system, which seems to have serious problems on the other side of the Khashoggi issue.Another authoritarian and impulsive ally to Erdogan, who is doing everything possible to use the crisis in order to to hate the Saudis from international opinion and to undermine relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia. "

Trump has published a chart that highlights arms sales to Saudi Arabia during a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Oval Office in Washington in March.

Whether or not the MBS survives the Khashoggi scandal, the Trump administration has probably invested too much in the partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia to risk a serious break. After the rupture of the nuclear agreement with Iran, the plans of the Trump government to contain Tehran, to end a catastrophic conflict in Yemen and to conclude any agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, are executed via Riyadh.

While Turkey's determination to reveal the complicity of Saudi leaders in the assassination of Khashoggi must be applauded for human rights reasons, it can not conceal in the long run what some observers regard as a persistent strategic divergence. between Washington and Ankara.

"After being beaten in recent years for his human rights record, Erdogan is taking advantage of the Khashoggi scandal to remain the international player of principles, which is somewhat absurd," said Steven Cook, chief investigator of studies on the Orient. Middle and Africa at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "Neither Friends nor Enemies: The Future of US-Turkish Relations", he said in an interview. Turkey's domestic oppression, the military incursion into Syria and the strategic bias towards the east, he points out, point to a more fundamental divergence of interests and values. "Turkey officially remains an ally of NATO, but we can no longer say that it is a partner of the United States".