Local Editor

US President Donald Trump can’t let go of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman [MBS] despite increasing evidence that the latter ordered the murder of a Saudi critic overseas, and that is because Trump has personal stakes in propping up MBS, a new report suggests.

An article by The New York Times’ White House correspondent on Sunday explained why Trump was sticking with MBS even as “evidence piles up pointing to the Saudi crown prince’s responsibility in the brutal killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”

Khashoggi was assassinated by a hit squad of 15 Saudi Arabian agents — including a frequent companion of MBS and some members of his security detail — inside the Saudi consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul on October 2.

Turkey “moved heaven and earth” to bring international attention to the killing. As that attention was attracted, Saudi Arabia became incapable of quietly getting away with the assassination.

Riyadh has several times altered its narrative on the killing. Initially, it denied the killing altogether. After 18 days of blatant denial, Riyadh finally acknowledged the killing but said Khashoggi had been killed in a “rogue” operation that had gone haywire. Still later, on Thursday, November 15, the Saudi Public Prosecution offered yet another account, saying the 15 agents had acted on “an order to bring back the victim [Khashoggi] by means of persuasion, and if persuasion fails, to do so by force” but had then went on to kill him on their own.

Citing informed sources, The Washington Post reported on November 16 that the CIA “has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination.”

Trump, who had already refused to directly implicate MBS, then defied his own country’s intelligence agency by saying that the CIA assessment was “very premature.”

The New York Times said in its Sunday article that Trump had basically three reasons why he was resisting blaming MBS.

It said Saudi Arabia — which is under the de facto rule of MBS — is “a linchpin” of the Trump administration’s hawkish strategy on Iran. The Saudi crown prince also has a close relationship with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is pursuing what he thinks would be a “peace” deal between “Israelis” and Palestinians. And lastly, MBS has pledged to buy 110 billion dollars’ worth of American military equipment.

The stance is “a vivid illustration of how deeply Mr. Trump has invested in the 33-year-old heir [to the Saudi crown], who has become the fulcrum of the administration’s strategy in the Middle East — from Iran to the “Israeli”-Palestinian peace process — as well as a prolific shopper for American military weapons, even if most of those contracts have not paid off yet,” the article read.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team