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(For the past seven years, the Assadist left has made an amalgam of
every Islamist party or state. It is one vast conspiracy against an
enlightened, socialist Baathist president who got 99 percent of the vote
the first time he ran. Daesh, al-Nusra, Turkey, the Muslim Brotherhood,
Saudi Arabia--all of them were enemies of Assad and supported by the USA
and Israel. Anybody with half a brain could figure out that this was
nonsense. This article is mostly about the Khashoggi assassination but
it highlights the key difference between the Saudis and Erdogan over the
Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia SUPPORTED General al-Sisi's violent
coup against the Muslim Brotherhood, after all. It also engaged in
economic warfare against Qatar that backed the Muslim Brotherhood.)
NY Times, Oct. 12, 2018
Khashoggi Case Raises Tensions Between Saudi Prince and Turkish President
By David D. Kirkpatrick and Ben Hubbard
ANKARA, Turkey — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has long cast
himself as a champion of the Arab Spring uprisings and the political
Islamists who once seemed poised to ride them to power.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia anchors the opposite
camp in an ideological battle raging across the Middle East: the
anti-Islamist strongmen who quashed the revolts.
The two leaders, each the head of a major regional power, have until now
kept their relations cordial in the interest of stability. But over the
past week, tensions between them have erupted over the disappearance of
Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist who
vanished after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul nine days ago.
Mr. Erdogan has repeatedly challenged Saudi Arabia to explain Mr.
Khashoggi’s disappearance, while Turkish officials say they have video
and audio evidence proving he was killed, and have unleashed a stream of
leaks suggesting that the royal court ordered it. The crown prince and
his spokesmen have insisted, without providing evidence, that Mr.
Khashoggi left the consulate freely, professing that they, too, are
worried about him.
The dispute pits two staunch, headstrong nationalists against each other
— both with ambitions to reshape their region. They also share an
aversion to public criticism and a history of refusing to back down from
a fight.
“These are two people who each think he is the most important person in
the Muslim world,” said Steven A. Cook, a scholar at the Council on
Foreign Relations who studies both countries. “Ego is a factor on both
sides.”
On Thursday, there were signs that the two leaders were looking for a
way out. Mr. Erdogan’s office announced that he had agreed to a Saudi
request to form a joint “working group” that will examine Mr.
Khashoggi’s disappearance.
Certainly, each man has much to lose.
Mr. Erdogan is struggling to manage a teetering economy and his
entanglement in war-torn Syria. He can ill afford a new battle with a
deep-pocketed regional power like Saudi Arabia.
For Prince Mohammed, the affair threatens to severely damage the image
of moderate reformer that he has worked for years to cultivate. Eager to
diversify the Saudi economy before it runs out of oil, he has courted
Washington, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Hollywood with promises to
open up and modernize the kingdom.
The prince has already endured his share of criticism in the West for
leading a devastating war in Yemen, temporarily detaining the prime
minister of Lebanon, and locking up hundreds of businessmen in a luxury
hotel on suspicion of corruption. If he is held responsible for Mr.
Khashoggi’s disappearance — and perhaps death — that could strengthen
domestic enemies bruised by his swift rise to power.
Internationally, it is already undermining his courtship of Western
visitors and investors. Several participants said Thursday that they
were dropping out of an investment conference known as Davos in the
Desert that the prince is hosting this month in Riyadh.
“His credibility in the West and in the U.S. is at stake,” said Kristian
Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at
Rice University. “The credibility gap is going to be huge, and the Saudi
boosters in D.C. are going to find it extremely difficult to portray the
image that they were generally quite successful in trying to push.”
With lawmakers from both parties in Washington now threatening to seek
sanctions over the case, Saudi leaders appear surprised by the magnitude
of the international reaction. Prince Mohammed has canceled or postponed
meetings with diplomats and other foreign visitors, and Foreign Minister
Adel al-Jubeir has been unusually quiet.
Mr. Erdogan, for his part, has almost taunted the crown prince with
questions, testing how close he can come to blaming Saudi Arabia for Mr.
Khashoggi’s disappearance without explicitly doing so.
“Is it possible that there is no camera system at a consulate, an
embassy?” he said, according to Turkish news reports. “Is it possible
there was no camera system in the Saudi Arabian Consulate where this
incident happened? I mean, if a bird flies from here, a mosquito flies,
those systems would capture it. And they have the most advanced ones.”
“It is not possible for us to remain silent about such an incident
happening in our country,” Mr. Erdogan said.
Mr. Erdogan’s greatest concern is not foreign but domestic: borrowing
taken on during his 15-year drive to build up the Turkish economy has
left its corporate sector sagging under the weight of more than $200
billion in foreign debt. That has dragged down the value of Turkish
currency, spurring high inflation.
Although Saudi Arabia is hardly its biggest investor, Turkish officials
have boasted that their country did $8 billion a year in business with
the kingdom. Wealthy Saudi holidaymakers are a staple of Istanbul’s
tourist industry.
“The stakes are very high, and that is why Erdogan will be very
restrained,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the Ankara office director of
the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “Turkey is going through
hard economic times, and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries have the
ability to tip the balance of Turkey’s economy.”
The disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi also threatens something less
tangible: the prestige Mr. Erdogan’s Turkey has enjoyed around the
region as a refuge for Arab politicians and thinkers under pressure from
their own governments.
“Because Turkey has become such a haven for Arabs who no longer feel
safe in their own countries, there is a lot of reputational damage for
Erdogan,” said Tamara Cofman Wittes, a scholar at the Brookings
Institution and a former State Department official.
Several analysts said they already saw hints that Mr. Erdogan might be
exploring a face-saving retreat for both sides — for example, by
allowing the crown prince to acknowledge Mr. Khashoggi’s death but pin
the blame on some rogue element in his government.
The announcement of the joint working group in the case added to the
speculation. But how that cooperation might work, given the Turkish
allegations against the Saudis, remains to be seen.
Over the years, Mr. Erdogan and Prince Mohammed have worked to suppress
their differences.
When the Turkish leader cracked down after a failed military coup two
years ago, Saudi Arabia was quick to help him, extraditing a Turkish
military attaché suspected of playing a role in the plot. Mr. Erdogan
singled out the kingdom for special thanks, and Prince Mohammed
reciprocated by joining his father, King Salman, in congratulating Mr.
Erdogan on his survival.
When Egyptian newspapers recently quoted Prince Mohammed calling Turkey
part of an “evil” alliance in the region, he hastened to deny it,
issuing a statement that he was criticizing the Islamists of the Muslim
Brotherhood, not the government of Turkey.
But tensions between them still rose.
Mr. Erdogan remains close to the Muslim Brotherhood, which Saudi Arabia
considers a national security threat and has branded as a terrorist
organization. Turkey has also remained close to Qatar, another regional
friend to the Brotherhood.
As he has consolidated power, Prince Mohammed has become increasingly
bold. At age 33, he has charmed younger Saudis and many in the West by
promising to diversify the Saudi economy and weaken the kingdom’s
religious authorities. He has let women drive and allowed concerts and
movie theaters — all novelties for the kingdom.
On a tour of the United States this year, Prince Mohammed was welcomed
as a statesman. He met with President Trump; dined with Rupert Murdoch;
had his picture taken with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Bill Gates, and
Tim Cook of Apple; and hung out with the actor known as The Rock.
But many of his actions have backfired.
His military intervention in Yemen has so far produced only a stalemate
and humanitarian crisis. His detention of the prime minister of Lebanon
was ultimately ineffectual. And his imprisonment without due process of
hundreds of wealthy businessmen, including several of his royal cousins,
unnerved many of the investors he had set out to woo.
And now there are the allegations about Mr. Khashoggi.
Ms. Wittes, the Brookings scholar, said that if the Saudis “are willing
to assassinate a journalist on foreign soil because he was mildly
critical, these international partners are going to be much less likely
to send their students, researchers and experts to the kingdom or to set
up long-term partnerships with the kingdom.”
Being seen in the eyes of the world as responsible for such a grisly
assassination might once have been enough to disqualify a crown prince
from succession to the Saudi throne. But Prince Mohammed, who is known
as MBS, appears to have amassed more control than any leader in decades
over the sources of hard power in the kingdom — the military, the
national guard and the Interior Ministry — as well as the oil ministry.
Many analysts say there is almost no one left to challenge him —
provided he maintains the good will of his elderly father.
“There is no real coalition that can mobilize against MBS,” said Mr.
Ulrichsen, the Middle East fellow. “He seems to be secure in his
position. And that seems to be the reason we see such actions.”
David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Ankara, and Ben Hubbard from Beirut.
Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Istanbul.
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