Another country in recent political turmoil is Saudi Arabia. Although Saudi Arabia is usually a hot pressing topic in the international state system, it was truly placed under the microscope following the death of exiled journalist (and critic of the Saudi Crown) Jamal Khashoggi while he was visiting the Saudi consulate in Turkey in an attempt to get divorce papers so he could marry his new fiancé. In case you missed the story while it was breaking you can catch up on it here. Following his death there was a period (roughly two weeks in length) where Saudi Arabia claimed it had no knowledge of what happened to Khashoggi. Eventually conflicting reports came out as to various rogue operations that took place within the Saudi consulate that led to Khashoggi’s demise. Finally, over a month after his death, a Saudi prosecutor revealed that Khashoggi was given a lethal injection following a struggle, and that his body was dismembered within the consult. Throughout this whole process there was a strong outcry against the Saudi crown, both domestic and abroad.

Internally, this whole scandal is causing dissent and casting doubt over Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Senior princes are displeased with the conduct in which Mohammad sin Salman is behaving and considered reproaching him. His popularity with youth, however, remains strong as he is credited to many seemingly progressive moments in the nation, such as giving women the right to drive as well as reintroducing movies into the Saudi Arabian culture.

Seemingly every country abroad was up in arms about this elaborate killing of a journalist who spoke out against the Saudi government. Nearly everyone but one: the United States of America. Of course many people in America were upset with what Saudi Arabia had done, but no official condonation was given to the country. Why might this be you ask? There are a multitude of reasons for which the United States did not and will not condone Saudi Arabia for killing Khashoggi.

First, Saudi Arabia has huge oil reservers. Here in the United States we love oil, in fact we can’t get enough of it! Therefore, we wouldn’t do something that would cause Saudi Arabia to go to OPEC and cause a shortage of oil in the United States or dramatically increase the price of oil per barrel that the United States would be buying. Another major reason for why the United States would not condone Saudi Arabia is because of money. More specifically, weapons deals. Saudi Arabia is not capable of producing major weapons within their own country. For this reason they buy their weapons from the United States of America. In fact, Saudi Arabia is the United States of Americas’ number one customer when it comes to weapons. In 2017 a new weapons deal was struck up between the two countries in which Saudi Arabia would pay $110 billion dollars initially and an additional #350 billion over the course of ten years. Finally, the United States would never condone the actions of Saudi Arabia because we need the support of that country. One of the biggest enemies that is. affording state to the United States of America is Iran. The US became enemies with Iran following a military coup backed by the US. To make a long, messy story short the new regime that took place in Iran following the coup was extremely anti-United States and the two nations have been bitter enemies ever since. Many countries followed suit, turning their backs to the United States. This created a block of Middle Eastern nations that are all anti-United States, save for Saudi Arabia. Therefore, it is critical that the United States stays in good relations wit Saudi Arabia so they do not join Iran.

Were any actions taken against the Saudi Arabian regime? In fact there were. For example, Germany halted all sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia following the murder of Khashoggi. The German weapons industry fell over 22% in total exports because of this but Chancellor Merkel remained firm in her decision.

One country completely outraged by this series of events was Turkey, as the killing happened in their country. Turkey is angry with Saudi Arabia for conducting illegal activities within their sovereign borders and Turkey is also enraged with the United States and the response it gave about the death of Khashoggi, as it placed no blame on the leaders of the Saudi Government.

 

P.S. last week I wrote about the United Kingdom. Since writing that, the UK Parliament voted on the Brexit deal and it was shot down in historic proportions, once again throwing British politics into chaos. Prime Minister Theresa May once again had to stand before a no confidence vote, and once again she survived. This leaves a major question as to where the country will go from here.

 

All photos courtesy of CNN, BBC, and the Jerusalem Post