Joseph P. Duggan - Khashoggi, Dynasties, and Double Standards

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ENCOUNTER BROADSIDES

Inaugurated in the fall of 2009, Encounter Broadsides are a series of timely pamphlets and e-books from Encounter Books. Uniting an 18th century sense of public urgency and rhetorical wit (think The Federalist Papers, Common Sense) with 21st century technology and channels of distribution, Encounter Broadsides offer indispensable ammunition for intelligent debate on the critical issues of our time. Written with passion by some of our most authoritative authors, Encounter Broadsides make the case for ordered liberty and the institutions of democratic capitalism at a time when they are under siege from the resurgence of collectivist sentiment. Read them in a sitting and come away knowing the best we can hope for and the worst we must fear.

T ARGETED K ILLING

S INCE O CTOBER 2018, United States international security policy has been held hostage and deprived of intellectual nourishment. An orchestrated propaganda campaign took hold of the nations capital in response to the assassination in Istanbul of Jamal Khashoggi, a member of Saudi Arabias wealthy and politically powerful oligarchy.

In death, Khashoggi became known to millions of consumers of Western mainstream media who had never before heard of the man nor thought on an informed basis about the complex issues of Middle Eastern politics and security. He was described as a courageous journalist. He was mourned as a martyred advocate of radical reform in Saudi Arabia. He was hailed as a champion of democracy and human rights as they are proclaimed in the West.

Day after day and week after week, the same reports of his gruesome killing led the coverage of CNN, the Washington Post, and other influential outlets. It was as though Bill Murrays clock radio on Groundhog Day had been programmed to broadcast Saturday Night Lives old running gag about Generalissimo Franco still being deceased except it wasnt funny. A human being had been murdered, and the foul deed was metastasizing into an international incident challenging the very underpinnings of some of the worlds most vital security relationships.

At the beginning of the wall-to-wall coverage, before it was even confirmed that Khashoggi had been killed and not merely abducted alive, a coordinated message burst forth from the voices of the media and many American politicians, both Republicans and Democrats. Before it was clear exactly what crime had been committed, the villains in the case were named. Two major world political figures were placed in the dock of public opinion, prosecuted in a multimedia show trial, and recommended for career-ending penalties: Saudi Arabias de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and U.S. president Donald Trump.

Khashoggis assassination, if one is to be realistic about it, fits into the international political category of targeted killing.

A formerly unknown Saudi oligarch was suddenly elevated to the altars of secular liberalism as a sort of Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, and Nelson Mandela rolled into one. The Saudi prince was proclaimed the savage who ordered the killing, and Trump was told to make a major break in U.S.-Saudi relations or else be indicted by world opinion as an accomplice in the crime of the century.

In December, U.S. senators, in one of the feel-good gestures of bipartisan non-legislation for which they have become so famously unpopular, took their stand in an anonymous voice vote on a resolution condemning the Saudi crown prince as the prime global evildoer of the moment. Individual senators have called explicitly for his removal from office in other words, regime change.

Only a few months earlier, Crown Prince Mohammeds dramatic reform campaign had been the toast of the Wests fickle liberal intellectualoids. Some realistic conservatives had taken cautious encouragement from the princes efforts too, and rightly so. Prince Mohammed had declared his determination to align Saudi Arabia with moderate Islam and to combat radical political Islamists ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to Al Qaeda and ISIS. He introduced some social reforms and accelerated efforts to diversify the national economy from heavy dependence on oil. He also made unprecedented gestures towards introducing greater tolerance and freedom for the millions of Christian guest workers in his country, and he showed signs of amity towards the State of Israel too.

For Western liberals, the death of Jamal Khashoggi transformed their view of Prince Mohammed. Overnight the prince went from reformer to reprobate, from a symbol of hope to a caricature of the Middle Eastern despotic monster.

What is going on here?

Khashoggis assassination, if one is to be realistic about it, fits into the international political category of targeted killing. This sort of extrajudicial killing, often on foreign soil, of persons considered to threaten vital national security interests is conducted routinely these days by the United States and Israel. These assassinations, to understate the matter, are controversial within the circles of international law. Yet those with the will and the power to perform them go on doing so.

Every such assassination, whether executed by a drone or a human hit team, is gruesome. Every such killing leaves holes in the hearts of innocent children, spouses, lovers, and friends of the deceased. Still, that does not mean that Israel and the United States are inherently immoral when they commit such killings.

There is no simple moral equivalence between one targeted killing and another. Reasonable people employing sound moral reasoning might find certain assassinations carried out by the Israelis and Americans justifiable while finding Khashoggis assassination unjustifiable. But from the Saudi leaders perspective, the action was a targeted killing of an individual they considered a threat to their kingdoms national security.

What is clearly morally wrong and dangerous to millions of innocent people here and in the Middle East is the emotionally charged campaign to pressure the U.S. government to support the overthrow of the ruler of Saudi Arabia. No good can come of such recklessness.

The euphoria concerning the young, reforming Saudi crown prince just a few months ago was not a sober stance. Worse still is the Off with his head! attitude towards the prince of nave U.S. politicians of both parties.

Mood swings in international relations are dangerous extremely dangerous when they take place at the heart of the government of the worlds leading superpower.

Sometimes it appears that what is taking place is a targeted killing of judiciously decided U.S. national security policy. Or maybe its better to call it an assisted suicide, with the Kevorkian role performed by sentimental humanitarians named Corker, Flake, Graham, and Rubio.

M Y L UNCH WITH J AMAL K HASHOGGI

Jamal Khashoggi was a very charming person. I learned this directly in March 2012 when I attended an international public relations conference in Dubai. I took the last open seat at one of the luncheon tables, and it happened that the man seated at my right was Jamal Khashoggi.

I had lived and worked in Saudi Arabia since 2009, and I knew the outline of Khashoggis career. He was the scion of one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia and a tremendously privileged member of the Saudi power structure. An uncle, the arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, had been a billionaire global playboy celebrity whose heyday was the 1980s, when a billion dollars was a lot of money. Jamal Khashoggi had a pleasant voice and a merry twinkle in his eye and wouldnt you, too, if the world were your oyster?

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