Khashoggi Back in the News

Now that the U.S. midterm elections are out of the way -- with the exception of high-profile races in Florida and Georgia -- a steady diet of Khashoggi news has resumed. On successive days over the holiday weekend the NYT's David Kirkpatrick, the Gray Lady's principal reporter during the Arab Spring revolution in Cairo's Tahrir Square, with various pen pals, published:

• "Turkey’s President Says Recording of Khashoggi’s Killing Was Given to U.S."
• "Saudis Close to Crown Prince Discussed Killing Other Enemies a Year Before Khashoggi’s Death"
• "‘Tell Your Boss’: Recording Is Seen to Link Saudi Crown Prince More Strongly to Khashoggi Killing"

Before Erdogan arrived in Paris for the centenary commemorating the end of World War One, he announced at a press conference in Ankara that Turkey had provided to the U.S., Germany, France, Britain and Saudi Arabia copies of the audio recording of Khashoggi's murder. The U.S. declined to comment. France denied it.

Sunday The New York Times tied in the Mueller probe with the Khashoggi killing by reporting that George Nader and Joel Zamel met with crown prince Mohammed bin Salman's right-hand an, Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, to pitch a plan to sabotage Iran's economy. Al-Assiri was more interested in talking about Murder, Inc. He wanted to know if Nader and Zamel could assassinate Qassim Suleimani, the leader of the Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Nader demurred, but said that there was a company in the UK that he could refer al-Assiri to.

As Kirkpatrick and his co-authors put it:

Both Mr. Nader and Mr. Zamel are witnesses in the investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, and prosecutors have asked them about their discussions with American and Saudi officials about the Iran proposal. It is unclear how this line of inquiry fits into Mr. Mueller’s broader inquiry. In 2016, a company owned by Mr. Zamel, Psy-Group, had pitched the Trump campaign on a social media manipulation plan.

Then, yesterday, something of a first. We are actually getting snippets of dialogue from the Khashoggi murder audio recording. One of the 15-man Saudi hit team, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, can be heard to say, Tell your boss the deed is done.

Of course Mutreb doesn't say, Tell MbS the deed is done. But at this point everyone knows that the crown prince is guilty of murder.

Trump has promised a big announcement this week of punitive measures directed at the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. So far all the U.S. has managed are public statements promising to discontinue in-flight refueling of Saudi-UAE fighter-bombers and promising to level sanctions against the guilty Saudis under the Global Magnitsky Act.

Trump sinks or swims with the crown prince. The administration's launch of its total embargo on Iran got off to a shaky start last week. But all in all it's proceeding as planned. SWIFT has cut off Iran's central bank. The Iranian economy will be suffocated gradually.The U.S. needs Saudi regional clout. It can't sanction both al-Saud and the Islamic Republic of Iran simultaneously and expect anything other than failure. So expect Trump's "big announcement" about Saudi Arabia to be all smoke and mirrors.

A real difficulty for the U.S. position in Yemen is that control of the House now returns to the Democrats. There are plenty of indicators that Congress is not going to be satisfied with an administration proclamation ending mid-air refueling. All assistance to the Saudi-UAE coalition must stop.

Hodeidah is hanging by a thread. Peace talks have been pushed back to the end of the year, not the end of the month as originally promised. The Saudis no doubt demanded the delay in order to have time to capture Hodeidah and bring the Houthis to the bargaining table as supplicants. As is often reported, 80 percent of all food comes through Hodeidah. Once the Saudi-UAE-U.S. coalition takes control of Hodeidah, they control Sanaa.

One positive development to note: the reporting on the war in Yemen has definitely improved since the Khashoggi assassination. For instance, the latest dispatch from Al Jazeera goes beyond the usual "more than 10,000 killed," citing 56,000, and then concludes:

Concerned by the rise of the Houthis, a US-backed Saudi-UAE military coalition intervened in 2015 with a massive air campaign aimed at reinstalling Hadi's government.

Since then, data collected by Al Jazeera and the Yemen Data Project has found that more than 18,000 air attacks have been carried out in Yemen, with almost one-third of all bombing missions striking non-military sites.

Weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals, as well as water and electricity plants, have been targeted, killing and wounding thousands.