Jamal Khashoggi
by Jack Watts
COMMON SENSE: Jamal Khashoggi certainly did not deserve to be murdered at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Istanbul, but this horrific incident must not be allowed to undermine our alliance with Saudi Arabia. Along with Israel, the Saudis are our key partners in the Middle East. Without them, it would be nearly impossible to check the aggressive territorial ambitions of the Iranians, whose partners include the Russians, Syrians, and terrorist groups like Hezbollah. The Iranians want to form the Crescent Caliphate, which includes the annihilation of Israel. This makes the Saudis vital to our foreign policy of keeping Iran in check.
Consequently, our condemnation of the Saudis must not include the termination of the $130 billion arms deal made in 2017. These munitions are absolutely necessary to maintain the balance of power in the Middle East. Nevertheless, canceling this arms deal is exactly what the pro-Iranian press and former Obama administration officials are calling for, knowing that it would benefit Iran while harming both Saudi Arabia and Israel.
There is no doubt that the Saudis have brought this mess upon themselves, but our response must be measured and not self-defeating. We simply cannot afford to discard this alliance; nor can we afford to allow the world’s oil supply to be threatened by overreacting to the murder of a non-American on foreign soil. Remember, international politics is often sordid, and it is never pure. This is certainly a perfect example of this.