Saudi journalist’s slaughter just the latest incident in the new Cold War
WHILE it is undeniably appalling, the story of the death of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is a sideshow in a new cold war that has been playing out across the Middle East since the Arab Spring. It appears almost certain that Khashoggi – once part of the Saudi ruling elites’ inner circle – was brutally murdered by a Saudi hit squad in the kingdom’s Turkish embassy.
What is still unclear is how and why Saudi Arabia’s leaders thought that they could get away with slaughtering one of the most famous political pundits in the Arab world.
Were they emboldened by the apathetic international reaction to the Russian state’s blatantly obvious role in the attempted assassination of former double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury last March?
The Middle East is at the heart of the new Cold War. Saudi Arabia and Russia are both key players in the conflict and, as such, western diplomats are wary of causing either of them any significant trouble.
It is fine to issue the odd carefully worded, non-committal “condemnation” but doing anything that would seriously disrupt the delicate balance of power in the region appears unthinkable.
Next month will see a major escalation in US President Donald Trump’s assault on Iran, with the introduction of severe US sanctions on Iranian oil.
If it is to succeed – by cutting off Iran’s oil revenues and thus its ability to fund its nuclear ambitions without causing global oil prices to soar – Saudi oil is the key and the House of Saud is acutely aware of this.
It is surely no coincidence that Saudi Arabia chose to rid itself of a powerful critic at a time when US policy is even more reliant on it than usual.
President Trump – who has previously described journalists as enemies of the people – was never likely to threaten his greatest regional allies over the death of a media critic.
Even if Iran’s allies, Russia, chose to attack the Saudi’s over Khashoggi, their previous record on dealing with dissidents wouldn’t give them much of a leg to stand on. Meanwhile, Turkey also has skin in the game.
Since the Arab Spring, Turkey has been vying with Saudi Arabia to shape the Middle East.
The Turks want to weaken Saudi influence; hamper the oil rich kingdom’s foreign policy ambitions and damage Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed Bin Salman.
Saudi Arabia probably couldn’t picked a worse place to kill Khashoggi than in their embassy in Ankara.
That the entire murder also seems to have been recorded by Turkish ‘ bugs’ makes the Saudi ‘plan’ seem even more inept.
The killing also suits Turkey’s increasingly despotic President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has used the investigation of the murder as an opportunity to cast his authoritarian regime in a favourable, pro democratic light.
However this all play out, it has a long way to go.