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Therefore, his death, if it is, after all, death, could not be ignored, no matter how much the West would like the story to disappear from the headlines.
President Trump remained silent for some time, then he became "concerned", and finally Washington began indicating that it could even take some actions against its second closest ally in the Middle East. The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been 'cultivated' both by Washington and other Western powers, but now he may actually fall from grace. Is he going to end up as Shah Pahlavi of Iran? Not now, but soon, or at least 'at some point'? Are the days of the House of Saud numbered? Perhaps not yet. But Washington has track record of getting rid of its 'uncomfortable allies.
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The Washington Post, in its editorial "Trump's embrace emboldened Saudi Crown Prince', snapped at both the 'Saudi regime' (finally that derogatory word, 'regime' has been used against the House of Saud) and the US administration:
"Two years ago it would have been inconceivable that the rulers of Saudi Arabia, a close US ally, would be suspected of abducting or killing a critic who lived in Washington and regularly wrote for the Post -- or that they would dare to stage such operation in Turkey, another US ally and a NATO member. That the regime now stands accused by Turkish government sources of murdering Jamal Khashoggi, one of the foremost Saudi journalists, in the kingdom's Istanbul consulate could be attributed in part to the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's 33-year-old de facto ruler, who has proved as ruthless as he is ambitious. But it also may reflect the influence President Donald Trump, who has encouraged the Crown Prince to believe -- wrongly, we trust -- that even his most lawless ventures will have the support of the United States."
"Wrongly, we trust?" But Saudi Arabia and its might are almost exclusively based on its collaboration with the global Western 'regime' imposed on the Middle East and on the entire world, first by Europe and the UK in particular, and lately by the United States.
All terror that the KSA has been spreading all over the region, but also Central Asia, Asia Pacific, and parts of Africa, has been encouraged, sponsored or at least approved in Washington, London, even Tel Aviv.
The Saudis helped to destroy the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and then the socialist and progressive Afghanistan itself. They fought Communism and all left-wing governments in the Muslim world, on behalf of the West. They still do.
Now both the West and the KSA are inter-dependent. The Saudis are selling oil and buying weapons, signing 'monumental' defense contracts with the US companies, such as Lockheed Martin. They are also 'investing' into various political figures in Washington.
The current alleged murder of a journalist triggered an unusual wave of soul-searching in the Western media. It is half-hearted soul searching, but it is there, nevertheless. On October 2018, the Huffington Post wrote:
"By directing billions of dollars of Saudi money into the U.S. for decades, Riyadh's ruling family has won the support of small but powerful circles of influential Americans and courted wider public acceptance through corporate ties and philanthropy. It's been a solid investment for a regime that relies heavily on Washington for its security but can't make the same claims to shared values or history as other American allies like Britain. For years, spending in ways beneficial to the U.S. -- both stateside and abroad, such as its funding Islamist fighters in Afghanistan to combat the Soviet Union -- has effectively been an insurance policy for Saudi Arabia."
It means that the White House will most likely do its best not to sever relationships with Riyadh. There may be, and most likely will be, some heated exchange of words, but hardly some robust reaction, unless all this tense situation 'provokes' yet another 'irrational' move on the part of the Saudis.
The report by Huffington Post pointed out that:
"One of the few traditions in American diplomacy that Trump has embraced wholeheartedly is describing weapons sales as jobs programs. The president has repeatedly said Khashoggi's fate should not disturb the $110 billion package of arms that Trump says he got the Saudis to buy to support American industry. (Many of the deals were actually struck under Obama, and a large part of the total he's describing is still in the form of vague statements of intent.)
Keen to keep things on track with the Saudis, arms producers often work in concert with Saudi Arabia's army of Washington lobbyists, congressional sources say."
This is where the Western reporting stops short of telling the whole truth, and from putting things into perspective. Nobody from the mainstream media shouts: 'There is basically no independent foreign policy of Riyadh!'
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