President Trump was right to make a deliberately blurry finding on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s culpability for the Oct. 2 murder of Saudi dissident, Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
“It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event,” Trump declared Tuesday, “maybe he did and maybe he didn’t.”
Let’s be clear, Trump is stretching credulity to near breaking point here. As I noted on Oct. 20, and the Washington Post officially reported on Nov. 16, the evidence indicates confidently that bin Salman is responsible for Khashoggi’s murder. The Turkish government shares that assessment and has threatened to publicize its evidence for that conclusion. On that point, it is possible that the real reason Trump has not listened to the Turkish audiotape of Khashoggi’s murder is so that he can insulate his deniability of bin Salman’s responsibility.
But that’s not the key here.
The key here is that while Khashoggi’s murder was a foul atrocity that shames bin Salman and Saudi Arabia, it is in the U.S. interest that the murder not seriously damage the U.S.-Saudi relationship. And were Trump to directly blame bin Salman, it would cause a major rupture in U.S.-Saudi relations and the likely realignment of Saudi foreign policy away from America and towards Russia.
Trump recognizes this. While Trump’s statement pays undue attention to Saudi arms purchases from the U.S., it also explicitly identifies America’s Middle Eastern balance of power interest in constraining Iran, and bin Salman’s effort to strengthen regional counter-terrorism efforts against groups like al Qaeda and ISIS.
That effort is relatively new and reflects a much needed change in Saudi policy from decades of prior acceptance for Salafi-Jihadist extremists. But bin Salman is also important to the U.S. for another reason: his domestic reforms. The crown prince is pursuing a series of major economic and social reforms to improve female participation and rights in Saudi society, and to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil. Although motivated by bin Salman’s desire to preserve the House of Saud rather than some moral interest, these efforts nevertheless matter greatly for America’s long-term security. Because if bin Salman’s reforms fail, Saudi Arabia will be a land defined by a youth-bulge population, high unemployment, and radical Islamism. And that’s a perfect recipe for an Islamic State 2.0 of much greater resource, size, and capability. And considering growing Saudi interest in nuclear weapons, it is a recipe that must never come to fruition.
Ultimately, Trump’s choice here was between risking American security and directly recognizing the brutal murder of a decent man. And in the cause of realism, something Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., does not understand, Trump has made the right choice.
