CAMBRIDGE, MA — The United States Director of National Intelligence’s release Friday of the classified report on the CIA-led investigation of the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi marks a critical moment of decision for the U.S. government — but also for others around the world who have long acquiesced in the brutality of Arab and other authoritarian regimes.
The report does not offer any new evidence that had not previously leaked about individuals and offices linked directly to the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who played roles in the murder. Its importance is that it provides the most conclusive and credible proof yet of the Crown Prince’s direct complicity in the pre-meditated and gruesome assassination, and it forces many individuals and governments to make a decision they had long put off: Do they sanction the Saudi Arabian crown prince and government for this criminal act, or do they just make symbolic gestures to express their disapproval and continue their political, commercial, and security relations with this leading Arab country?
A Saudi Arabian assassination squad, with several members who were in the crown prince’s entourage or worked with him, flew to Istanbul in October 2018 in two private jets owned by a company controlled by the crown prince. They killed Khashoggi then dismembered his body, which has never been found. The government lied about the murder, then in the face of evidence made available in Turkey it finally admitted that Khashoggi had died in a Saudi arrest operation gone bad, but which had nothing to do with the crown prince.
The DNI report’s conclusion is based on the CIA assessment on the crown prince’s
“control of decision-making in the kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of [Mohammed bin Salman’s] protective detail in the operation, and support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi”.
The report concluded unambiguously,
“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”
The fact that the killers took a bone saw with them suggests that murder was in their mind from the start. The U.S. report follows the work in 2019 of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions Agnès Callamard, whose six-month-long investigation of the murder concluded that Saudi Arabia was involved in a “deliberate, premeditated execution” of Khashoggi.
“There is sufficient credible evidence regarding the responsibility of the crown prince demanding further investigation,” she said.
The combination of the CIA and Callamard assessments now forces the U.S. government in the first instance to decide how it will move ahead in its relations with the Saudi kingdom, which the Biden administration has said it seeks to “reassess” and “recalibrate.” The U.S. government quickly announced Friday afternoon that it will sanction and restrict the entry into the U.S. of individuals who were part of the murder plot or who were involved in targeting, harassing, or surveilling dissidents and journalists in other countries.
These seem like mild actions that have been taken often against other countries without deterring criminal deeds. Yet the mention of acting firmly if Saudi Arabia takes actions against its dissident nationals abroad is new and perhaps significant, because targeted dissidents freely share facts with foreign intelligence and political agencies that help build a strong case against Arab tyrants.
An important reason to act firmly now against the Saudis is that their actions are typical of many other autocratic Arab regimes who look up to the Riyadh government. The entire region will pay a terrible price if a case as clear cut as the culpability of the Saudi crown prince here is not punished severely. For if his criminal and brutal deeds inside and beyond his own country continue to happen, the Arab region will keep spinning out of control into hellholes of gangster states and mafias where human life has little value and citizens have no rights.
What action to take is the big question that the U.S. and other governments must answer quickly, along with the private sector and international organizations that work with Saudi Arabia. Ideas being discussed include stronger sanctions against individuals, isolating political leaders from diplomatic engagements, launching a more rigorous international investigation into the accusations against the Saudi crown prince, and reducing commercial and military ties with the kingdom.
The problem, though, is that it will be extremely difficult to remove Mohammed bin Salman from his position as crown prince, given his strongman’s total grip on security, economic, information, and political power centers in the country. His father King Salman also is not in good health and may or may not be capable of dealing with the repercussions of his son and heir’s apparent criminal behavior. Most of Mohammed bin Salman’s domestic and foreign policies have failed, especially the Qatar blockade and the war in Yemen. To make things worse, he has achieved the dubious feat of turning a once low-key monarchy into yet another brutal Arab authoritarian society where no one dares speak their mind for fear of jail or death — following the model of the late Saddam Hussein or Moammar Gaddafi.
The most important reaction we should look for is probably inside Saudi Arabia, among the thousands of royal family members and the economic and security elite. However displeased or even ashamed many Saudis may be about seeing their country and leaders blackballed for their criminal murder plot and repeatedly lying about it, they have no means to express themselves in the kingdom. Well encrypted and anonymous social media are an option (but it is likely that with the assistance of their pals Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the Saudi security agencies have preemptively plugged any likely route for citizens to express their views).
International pressure is crucial to reduce or end such criminal behavior by Arab officials, but also to offer some hope for ordinary Arab men and women that they might anticipate a future in which they are more than the mere sheep and donkeys that they now feel like. The Saudi and other existing Arab judicial systems will not do this, as the Saudi case indicates. A Saudi Arabian security court convicted eight men for murdering Khashoggi, and five were sentenced to death. Their punishments were later commuted, allegedly because members of the Khashoggi family forgave the killers.
Ms. Callamard noted after her investigation that the Saudi trial represented “the antithesis of justice,” and other leading international human rights organizations said the same thing.
Rami G. Khouri is Director of Global Engagement at the American University of Beirut, a non-resident senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and an executive board member of the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies. He tweets @ramikhouri
Copyright ©2021 Rami G. Khouri — distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 26 February 2021
Word Count: 1,088
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