Mark Landler provides the Khashoggi rehash in "Despite Evidence on Khashoggi, Trump Sticks With the Crown Prince. Why?" It contains a good quote from Bruce Riedel, former spook now with Brookings:
Given the passions generated by the Yemen war on Capitol Hill, the White House is likely to use the Khashoggi affair as leverage to force Prince Mohammed to wind down the conflict as quickly as possible. But Saudi experts warn that this will be difficult since an abrupt Saudi retreat would further tarnish the prince’s image inside the kingdom.
“It’s very clear that what the administration wants is to buy off Congress with Yemen,” Mr. Riedel said. “But it doesn’t solve the underlying problem, which is that Mohammed bin Salman is a destabilizing force in the region.”Theresa May travels to Brussels this week ahead of Sunday's EU summit. The word is that she is trying to secure concessions to keep additional ministers from bolting her cabinet. As Reuters reports, "The EU is due to hold a summit to discuss the draft deal on Nov. 25. Some Brexit-supporting ministers are reported to want to rewrite parts of it, though Germany has ruled this out." (Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism predicted that this would happen, that the draft would be used to elicit more negotiations with the EU.)
At the same time the number of Tory letters asking for a confidence vote is approaching the magic number 48. My guess is a confidence vote is a sideshow and that the real danger for May is more defections from her cabinet.
Corbyn came out yesterday and agreed to a second Brexit referendum. The die is cast. May goes. Snap elections. New parliament. Re-vote Brexit.
The problem is the March 29 deadline. Can it be postponed?
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