As if this month’s news reel couldn’t get more bizarre, the mysterious (and allegedly brutal) death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi blew the lid wide open. True, the U.S. has always had a testy and controversial relationship with Saudi Arabia. But the Khashoggi murder will invariably lead to a perhaps intractable geopolitical fallout.
As reported by our own precious metals and technical analysis expert TraderStef, Khashoggi died under horrific and inexplicable circumstances. He was last seen alive walking into a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. From there, a high-ranking officer with close connections with Saudi royalty apparently interrogated Khashoggi.
The interrogation failed due to the journalist’s death, and perhaps in a panic, the interrogators dismembered his body. All would have “gone well,” but one of the clean-up crew members left a digital loose end in the cloud. That’s according to TraderStef, who dove further into the motivations and the likely resultant geopolitical fallout:
The disappearance of a reform-minded journo is only the latest in a string of issues that have cast doubt over Saudi Arabia, now under the sword of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). MBS was praised for instituting broad reforms, such as Vision 2030, but he did launch a war in Yemen in response to Iranian influences, directed a blockade of Qatar, detained and reportedly tortured several out of hundreds of journos, activists, clerics, businessmen, and Saudi officials. He also instigated a diplomatic row with Canada over a mere criticism, along with a laundry list of perceived infractions in diplomacy, human rights, and financial decisions. MBS is gaining a reputation of being impulsive, and perhaps irresponsible.
Indeed, MBS committed the most irresponsible act of any world leader, and this will not end well.
Geopolitical Fallout Exposes Relations between U.S. and Saudi Arabia
If indeed Saudi Arabia wanted to silence Khashoggi, they took on a high-risk, low-probability assassination. While they got the job done, they failed to do so cleanly, creating a geopolitical fallout that is irreversible.
Such permanence in this insane mystery creates critical problems for both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Experts routinely cite the latter as the ultimate terrorism sponsor. In fact, prior to President Trump running for office, the then-real estate mogul wrote that Saudi Arabia is “the world’s biggest funder of terrorism.”
So what changed? Money, but more specifically oil. The Middle Eastern power is gushing with black gold, and as a result, earns American complicity. The U.S. simply turns the other way when Saudi Arabia engages in all manners of human-rights violations.
We even bombed other countries for retaliation for 9/11. Military forces invaded Afghanistan despite several reports that terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was dead or close to death. The Bush administration toppled Iraq despite no evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
We’ll run through a brick wall for Saudi Arabia. However, the Khashoggi murder is one brick too many. This incident now places the U.S. in an awkward situation where they must penalize the Saudis, or lose face.
And that’s really the problem. As long as the Saudi leadership played by the book, no geopolitical fallout would be necessary. But with this controversy, all bets are off.