generalspeaking

Friday, October 12, 2018

Mysteries Demand Explanations

"At this time, I implore President Trump and first lady Melania Trump to help shed light on Jamal's [journalist Jamal Khashoggi] disappearance."
"I also urge Saudi Arabia, especially King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to show the same level of sensitivity and release CCTV footage from the consulate."
Hatice Cengiz, fiancee, Turkey

"We want to see what's going on there. That's a bad situation."
"Frankly, because it's a reporter, you could say in many respects, it brings it to a level."
"It's a very serious situation for us."
U.S. President Donald Trump, Washington

"The likelihood is he was killed on the day he walked into the consulate. There was Saudi involvement."
"The Saudis have a lot of explaining to do because all indications are that they have been involved at minimum with his disappearance."
"Everything points to them."
Republican Senator Bob Corker, Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations

"It's time for the United States to rethink our military, political and economic relationship with Saudi Arabia [if it is proven that Saudi Arabia lured an American resident into a consulate to kill him]."
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy

Murad Sezer | Reuters

Human rights activists and friends of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi hold his pictures during a protest outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey October 8, 2018.

The way of the world and its politics is indeed strange. Here is Turkey pointing an accusing finger of blame at Saudi Arabia for what it claims is the cold-blooded and rather gruesome murder of a Saudi national, known to be critical of his home country, a journalist who has written along that vein extensively and who has written a series of explosively revealing columns for the Washington Post. Is it news that Saudi Arabia's type of Wahhabist Salafist Islam is a threat, one that has been consistent in giving birth to violent jihadist groups?

And here is Turkey, another Sunni fundamentalist state, known to give practical and ideological support to those same groups, but who prefers to align himself with Qatar and Iran, whose Shiite brand of Islamist jihad though running counter to its own brand beckons Turkish support. The death of one man who, despite feeling threatened by the very act of once again entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, did so regardless; in effect inviting fate.

As opposed to Turkey's responsibility in the deaths of thousands of its Kurdish nationals who have no wish to remain Turkish nationals, feeling they have a right and the world an obligation to finally grant them sovereign rights, all 50-million of them whose heritage geography is Kurdistan and the regions divided by Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq. There is a name pegged on a journalist whose ostensible planned abduction and murder has transfixed the Arab world, but a huge amorphous mass of dead are not to be the vehicle by which a murderous regime is held accountable.

Turkey is leading the accusative fray in charging Saudi Arabia with political assassination on Turkish soil. With 'proof' in the form of surveillance camera videos of the arrival of two Gulfstream jets whose passengers included 15 Saudis arriving before dawn the very day that Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate for a marriage permit and failed to emerge, though his fiancee was waiting, concerned but patient, at the gates outside, for his emergence. He failed, however, to join her, as planned.

And the 15 Saudis, whom Turkey identifies as an "assassination squad" dispatched for the singular purpose of killing the Saudi journalist-critic left expeditiously that very same day, business satisfactorily concluded. A Saudi intelligence officer, the chief of forensic evidence of the Internal security Agency of Saudi Arabia and two members of the Saudi guard among them. Khashoggi, insists Turkish authorities, was dispatched soon after his entry to the consulate.

He had been there a week earlier for the requested permit for marriage, and had been informed the papers would be ready a week later for him to pick up at an appointed time. That appointed time saw preparations for his dispatch. His arrival on October 2nd at the Saudi consulate was timed to end his criticism of his native country, thanks to the "assassination squad" intent on performing their duty to King and country and of course, Crown Prince.

Saudi Arabia, a major investor in a Turkey badly needing investment as its currency fades and its stock market plummets, may rethink its investment portfolios in Erdogan's Turkey for very personal reasons beyond Ankara's irritating support of Iran and Qatar. Khashoggi had made application to become an American citizen since living in the United States in self-imposed exile. His fiancee wrote that his fears stemmed from his pointed criticism of the Crown Prince through repercussions of a serious nature.

His fears realized when his guard was not sufficiently alerted to trust his instincts, Saudi Arabia finds itself in a very delicate situation. There is little doubt that King Salman is likely castigating his impetuously volatile son for his ill judgement. President Trump has, he said, spoken "more than once" with 'the Saudis' in the last few days. "I'm not happy about it", he said of Khashoggi's disappearance. Looking for answers? "Yes we are. We are demanding everything."

Demands a long time coming. But which will, once the proverbial dust settles, amount to nothing in particular. The Byzantine affairs of the Middle East grind on.