Umar Farooq
01 November 2018•Update: 01 November 2018
By Umar Farooq
WASHINGTON
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is facing political fallout from the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Bloomberg News wrote Thursday.
Bloomberg noted not only did key figures drop out of the Saudi investor conference in Riyadh earlier this month, but the U.S. has begun to shift its stance on the Saudi prince.
Two top U.S. officials have demanded an end to the Saudi-led war in Yemen, while President Donald Trump's administration is pressuring the kingdom to renew its ties with Qatar, according to the news agency.
“Khashoggi’s murder has given the U.S. greater leverage over Saudi Arabia,” Kamran Bokhari, senior lecturer on Middle Eastern geopolitics at the University of Ottawa, told Bloomberg. “Therefore they are now more receptive than ever before to outside influence over their policies. To what extent the Trump administration will use this opportunity to shape behavioral change remains to be seen.”
Turkish prosecutors have concluded Khashoggi was strangled to death in a premeditated killing, soon after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
Turkey is "another country that may use the murder as leverage over the Saudis," Bloomberg wrote.
While once thought of as a reformer by U.S. politicians, bin Salman is now facing heavy criticism. American lawmakers have called for measures on Saudi Arabia in response to Khashoggi's killing, including halting a nuclear power equipment deal between the two countries.
The crown prince is also facing internal pressure, with his father King Salman removing one of his top advisers. The king's brother also returned to the country after a long hiatus, signaling that he may try to "curtail" bin Salman's influence.
“As this litany of lunacy shows, Prince Mohammed is not and can no longer be viewed as a reliable or rational partner of the United States and our allies,”, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice wrote in the New York Times. “Either way, the Trump administration must assume that Prince Mohammed will continue to drive his country and our bilateral relationship over the proverbial cliff.”
