© Fareed ZakariaCrown Prince Mohammed bin Salman • US President Donald Trump
The Saudi Crown Prince might be implicated in journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder, US President Donald Trump said. The US and its allies used harsh words to speak about the act, there's no harsh punishment to follow.
"Well, the prince is running things over there more so at this stage.
He's running things and so if anybody were going to be, it would be him," Trump told the
Wall Street Journal, answering a question about the Saudi crown prince's possible involvement into the killing of the journalist. He also added
he was "convinced" that the Saudi King Salman did not know about the murder in advance.
However, Trump suddenly changed his stance, stating that he wanted to believe the prince is actually not involved in the incident. The US president told the
WSJ that he repeatedly questioned Prince Mohammed about Khashoggi's death "in a couple of different ways" and
the prince told him he did not "know anything about it in terms of the initial planning."Asked whether he indeed trusts Mohammad bin Salman's words, Trump replied:
"I want to believe them. I really want to believe them." Earlier, the US leader denounced Khashoggi's murder and its cover-up by the Saudi Arabia as a "total fiasco from day one."
Comment: The problem with the American ethic is that it is unsustainable and false. The U.S. pretends to do foreign policy according to a unique set of values. If countries are "bad", then the U.S. doesn't have good relations with them. Not only does this not work in practice, it exposes the U.S. to the charge of hypocrisy, since it routinely does deals with the worst dictatorships on the planet, like Saudi Arabia. Countries like Russia don't have that problem. They don't pretend to arrange their international relationships on the basis of shared values or humanitarianism. They explicitly say they respect other nations' sovereignty and leave all moralizing to bodies like the UN and international law. The U.S. wouldn't be open to the charge of hypocrisy if they just stopped pretending to be so guided by morals that they can't actually put into practice.
While Trump doesn't want to believe MBS was involved with the murder,
Erdogan (via his aide) is explicitly calling him out:
"There are many inconsistencies and lies in what Saudi Arabia says, even a child will not trust them. That is an obvious shame that touches also Crown Prince [Mohammed bin] Salman. At least five people from the 'team of murderers' are from his closest circle, others would not have acted without their permit ... That is why even if US President Donald Trump saves the crown prince, he will nevertheless remain in the eyes of the whole world a person with the hands coated with blood of Khashoggi," Erdogan's aide, Ilnur Cevik, told the Yeni Birlik media outlet.
Comment: Italy has made it quite clear that it is seeking to remove itself from the yoke of the EU, and that it wants better relations with Russia, perhaps this is a reminder to the EU that there are alternatives:
- Stock market crash in Italy, Argentina raises interest rates to 65 percent in panic
- Italy declares economic war on EU's austerity regime
- Italy's new PM vows immediate implementation of stricter asylum laws and moving budget away from EU control
- Italian port of Trieste aiming to be China's primary entry into Europe
Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: 'Quitaly' Highlights EU's Democratic Crisis