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The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The Disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi Casts Suspicion on the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman
00:18:11
The Disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi Casts Suspicion on the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman
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- [00:00]
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- [01:17]
Dorothy Wickenden
This is the Political Scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about Politics. It's Thursday, October 11th.
- [01:24]
Dexter Filkins
Dr.
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Dorothy Wickenden
I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker. Last week, the 59 year old journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared after visiting Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul. A few days later, the Turkish government accused the Saudis of murdering him. A Saudi citizen and a columnist for the Washington Post who has lived in exile in Virginia since last summer, Khashoggi had been increasingly critical of the Saudi government. Last March, in a debate on Al Jazeera tv, he was asked why he had compared Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Vladimir Putin.
- [02:03]
Jamal Khashoggi (quoted)
I still see him as a reformer, but he is gathering all power within his hand and it would be much better for him to allow a breathing space for critics, for Saudi intellectuals, Saudi writers, Saudi media to debate the most important needed transformation going in the country. What he is doing I called for and I got fired for when I was an editor of a newspaper. Allowing women to drive or for women to be empowered or to limit the power of the religious establishment I demanded that, and he is doing the right things. But it is an important transformation that requires all of us to contribute to it, to, to discuss it, and no one should be jailed for. Fair enough.
- [02:52]
Dorothy Wickenden
Dexter Filkins joins me to discuss how the Trump administration has embraced the crown prince as a central figure in its Middle east policy and the diplomatic crisis posed by the apparent assassination of Khashoggi. Dexter, welcome back. Thanks for coming on.
- [03:08]
Dexter Filkins
Thank you.
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Dorothy Wickenden
You knew Jamal Khashoggi quite well, as I understand, and talked to him a few days before he disappeared. Couldn't, could you tell us about that conversation?
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Dexter Filkins
I'm still in shock. I spoke to him about a week before he disappeared. He told me when he was still in the U.S. he told me that he had some information on a new round of arrests of Saudi journalists, people who had been detained. He said, I have the charge sheets. I can show you everything. I think it would be a really good story for you. We need to bring attention to these people. And so we had actually made kind of a, kind of, we had agreed to talk again in the future. And then he disappeared.
- [03:54]
Dorothy Wickenden
Tell us how the White House has responded so far.
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Dexter Filkins
Well, they haven't really, you know, President Trump has said that he's looking at it and he's hearing disturbing reports and, you know, it would be bad if it's true. They've been pretty restrained so far and disturbingly so. I think Secretary of State Pompeo put out a statement the other night at about 11:00pm saying, you know, we implore the Saudis to, you know, continue their search for Khashoggi and to look into it and get to the bottom of it. But I think, I think what's really disturbing about this is that the evidence is pretty clear what happened. Something really terrible happened. I think at best he's been kidnapped. But I think the evidence points towards a terrible, terrible murder. And, you know, this is a state assass of a columnist for the Washington Post who was living in the United States. I mean, it's absolutely shocking and I'm surprised at how restrained the Trump administration has been.
- [04:58]
Dorothy Wickenden
Well, except that the close ties they've cultivated with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. So you wrote at length this past summer. You wrote a profile of bin Salman, or MBS as he's known. And you open with a scene of 36 year old Jared Kushner, Trump's son in law, sitting down at a table a few days after the inauguration with a map of the Middle east in front of him, deciding how to reshape it. And he had no diplomatic experience or any real understanding of politics in the region. What did he think he was doing?
- [05:32]
Dexter Filkins
Their plan essentially was, here's the Middle East. We have two pillars in the Middle East. One is Israel, the other is Saudi Arabia, and the enemy is Iran. And that's how we're going to look at the region from now on. And when we look at Saudi Arabia, we have a monarchy which is in decline, increasingly in danger. The price of oil is down and oil is on the way out in the future. What is going to happen there? We need a change agent. We need somebody who's going to remake this system and save it. And MBS is the guy. And at the time, MBS was not the crown prince. And Jared Kushner had already established contact with him and they literally picked him out of the pack and said, he's going to be our guy. And that helped to elevate mbs, Mohammed bin Salman to become the Crown prince. And they have supported him almost unconditionally, first in his rise to power and now in his exercise of power.
- [06:29]
Dorothy Wickenden
He seems to have an uncanny ability, or he has until now, to ingratiate himself with, you know, important, powerful people. And when you were working on the piece last spring, he was being celebrated in the US for championing the initiative that Khashoggi mentioned in that clip about allowing Saudi women to get driver's licenses. But around the same time, a prominent women's rights activist was given a death sentence. People seemed willfully blind about the other side of this. He was sort of presented as this enlightened despot.
- [07:02]
Dexter Filkins
Yes. I mean, he's very much a two sided figure. I mean, on one hand he is a reformer and he's been very blunt about it. He said, you know, oil is on the way out. Oil is all we have. It's all of our revenues, it's our entire economy. We have, you know, millions of young people who are college educated who don't have jobs. We have to change the country. And he's been very dynamic and very aggressive in that sense. But and this is the dark side. I mean, I think that it's clear that he wants to save the system in order to save the monarchy, in order to save the total power that the royal family has. And he has been absolutely ruthless in suppressing any kind of opposition to the royal family's rule and that against he's imprisoned women's rights activists, he's imprisoned journalists, he's imprisoned economists. Anybody who has spoken out against the regime, which of course, Jamal Khashoggi increasingly was doing.
- [07:58]
Dorothy Wickenden
And what about that violent shakedown at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh last November?
- [08:04]
Dexter Filkins
Well, that's, I mean, if I can address your earlier point, which is about the reception that he got in the United States, the Ritz Carlton. He brought together more than 100 members of the mostly members of the royal family, people who had enriched themselves, often illicitly and in a corrupt way. He brought them together for and imprisoned them in this fabulous hotel. And it was a big shakedown. It was, you're not leaving here until you turn over a large portion of your fortune. And as we discovered, a lot of those interrogations and shakedowns were violent. Some of those people were abused, and some of them died in custody. And all of this was pretty clear by the time Mohammed bin Salman visited the United States in the spring. And when he arrived here, he was feeded as, you know, the great reformer, the great visionary. And I was a little shocked by that because I thought the writing was on the wall then that this is a very complicated figure and maybe a great reformer on one hand, but has a very, very dark side, which I think we've seen more of in the past few weeks.
- [09:14]
Dorothy Wickenden
So next month, MBS is hosting, I think it's the second annual business summit at the same hotel. Some people out after the Khashoggi reports, but many are still expected to attend, at least as of this recording, including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnookin. Why is the business world so willing to embrace this guy?
- [09:35]
Dexter Filkins
Well, this is, boy, what an awkward moment that's going to be. I know that the New York Times had backed out. I think that they were a sponsor. Stephen Schwartzman is supposed to go, Jamie Dimon, all the big American financers. You know, the short answer is Saudi Arabia has a lot of money to spend. And, you know, MBS has been very clear about he wants to invest in the United States and he wants to, you know, he's bought big shares of American companies like Uber. And so they, you know, they're lining up. And so I think what's happened to Jamal Khashoggi is going to really, really complicate things for him. And I think there's potentially going to be an enormous backlash, if not from the Trump administration, then at least from the American business class. I think they're going to have a very hard time, you know, posing for pictures with him and smiling broadly because all evidence of Khashoggi's murder leads back to mbs.
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Dorothy Wickenden
And just to go back to his records, so far, in his very brief time in office, around the same time as the Ritz Carlton attacks, there was this bizarre episode which you write about when Saad Hariri, the prime minister of Lebanon, who also is a Saudi citizen, was summoned to Riyadh and then taken into custody.
- [10:47]
Dexter Filkins
Well, I think it's. In some ways it foreshadows what appears to have happened in Istanbul to Khashoggi. Lebanon is very much. And the government there in particular is a recipient of large amounts of Saudi aid. So the Saudis have a lot of influence there. But he summoned Saad Hariri to his palace and it's pretty clear was abused physically.
- [11:12]
Dorothy Wickenden
Why were they angry with him?
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Dexter Filkins
It's a complicated situation in Lebanon always, but essentially, MBS sees the Iranian enemy pretty much everywhere across the Middle east. And in Lebanon in particular, Iran are the big sponsors of Hezboll Hebola, the big armed group in Lebanon. And MbS in Hariri, he saw somebody who was too weak against Hezbollah and against Iran. Basically, I need somebody who's going to push back a lot harder. And so he brought him to Riyadh and he slapped him around. He slapped him around physically. I mean, I've heard that from several American sources. I mean, it's astonishing.
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Dorothy Wickenden
And you saw Hariri soon after that.
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Dexter Filkins
He was very subdued when I saw him, for obvious reasons, was not very happy to talk about any of this.
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Dorothy Wickenden
And what has his political fate been?
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Dexter Filkins
Well, ironically, when he returned to Lebanon from his bizarre captivity, he was greeted as a hero. So at least for the short term, it's actually helped him. But I think it's a measure of how overbearing and how rash MBS can be.
- [12:20]
Dorothy Wickenden
America is changing and so is the world.
- [12:25]
David Remnick
But what's happening in America isn't just.
- [12:27]
Dexter Filkins
A cause of global upheaval.
- [12:29]
David Remnick
It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
- [12:33]
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I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
- [12:35]
Dexter Filkins
Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.
- [12:39]
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Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.
- [12:45]
Dexter Filkins
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [12:52]
Dorothy Wickenden
So Khashoggi was hardly a radical dissident. Why would MBS feel so threatened that he'd order him to be assassinated?
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Dexter Filkins
You're absolutely right. He wasn't calling for the overthrow of the monarchy. He was very much a figure of the establishment. He'd worked for prominent newspapers in the country for years. You know, increasingly over time, he became unhappy with the monarchy and particularly with the new regime. I think the short, short answer is that he was a columnist for the Washington Post and he was becoming increasingly critical of the regime. But he had this platform that was very influential in the United States. His columns were translated widely in Arabic and he was very penetrating in his criticisms, particularly of the dark side of mbs, the jailing of women, the jailing of journalists. And I think it drove them crazy. I mean, I think that they really felt the sting of Khashoggi's penalty.
- [13:52]
Dorothy Wickenden
You know, I was just reading in the papers this morning about how pervasive the crackdown has been. In August, after Canada criticized the country for arresting human rights activists and it was a very modest criticism. The kingdom expelled the ambassador, froze new business deals and investments with the country and threatened to do the same to other Western countries if they criticize the regime.
- [14:17]
Dexter Filkins
This is a 33 year old, very thin skinned leader with enormous power and he does not take criticism very well.
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Dorothy Wickenden
Both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have issued warnings about what seems to be the fate of Khashoggi. Senator Lindsey Graham and Democrat Tim Kaine, among others, have been very clear. Graham said there will be hell to pay if the Saudi government turns out to have carried out this murder. What might the repercussions be?
- [14:49]
Dexter Filkins
It's going to turn on the evidence and basically how, frankly, how deniable that evidence is. So far what we know, most of what we know is from Turkish intelligence, which is pretty good. There's a film of Khashoggi walking into the Saudi consulate. There's cameras all around the building and he never walks out. And what we do see are the arrival that same day of 15 members of the Saudi security services in two chartered jets, including one pathologist. And there's a lot of activity captured on camera of their black windowless van driving between the embassy and the Consul General's residence. There's a lot of evidence that Turkish intelligence has compiled that suggests that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate. So we don't know at this point what American intelligence knows. We know one thing has been revealed so far which is that American intelligence a couple of weeks ago, I think intercepted some Saudi conversations in which officials were talking about luring Khashoggi to Istanbul where they could kidnap him or lure him to Saudi Arabia where they could grab him, the purposes for which were unclear. Were they going to kill him? Were they going to arrest him and put him on trial? It wasn't clear, but they were talking about abducting him. And what's not clear is Whether, you know, American intelligence warned Khashoggi. So there's not 100% certainty on what happened. But Khashoggi's missing. He's gone, and he never came out out of that councilor building.
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Dorothy Wickenden
And so the heartbreaking testimony of his fiance who waited outside the building for 11 hours, it's horrifying.
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Dexter Filkins
It really is. I think the burden is on the Saudis to show that Khashoggi was not killed or kidnapped and they are not cooperating with the investigation. They have told Turkish intelligence that they cannot come to their building. They said, you can come over and have a cup of tea, but you can't look through the building. They're continuing to deny that any of their security officials landed at the airport. Airports. They're acting like the way a guilty party acts, if they're not guilty, they need to come clean with the evidence pretty quickly. But all the evidence so far points to a terrible, terrible death for Jamal Khashoggi. And I think if you talk about what the American reaction is going to be, I'm concerned that the White House and Saudi Arabia supporters in Washington are going to demand some kind of 100% proof, which we're never going to get.
- [17:18]
Dorothy Wickenden
And what if the White House issues a very direct accusation? Would that have an effect on bin Salman?
- [17:26]
Dexter Filkins
You know, you could kind of imagine, at least theoretically, you could kind of imagine he's only the crown prince, the king, his father could remove him if it were that embarrassing. I don't. There's no evidence that anything like that has happened. But clearly this has backfired. If the Saudi government assassinated Jamal Khashoggi, and it certainly appears they did, they miscalculated, I think. They didn't really. His fiance was going to be waiting for him outside, and they didn't realize that the world was going to figure this out as it's done. So I think the reaction is going to be pretty brutal. But I think the problem for the White House is that this potentially upends their entire Middle east strategy.
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Dorothy Wickenden
Yes. And that was my final question. How does it affect the administration's wider policies in the Mideast?
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Dexter Filkins
Their whole worldview in the Middle east is Iran is the enemy and our friends are Israel over here and Saudi Arabia. So that's one of the two pillars of our entire Middle east strategy is now in question. And so it's difficult for me to imagine that as awful as this apparent assassination is, it's hard for me to believe that the Trump White House would jettison Saudi Arabia in any kind of significant way. And that's disturbing to me because I think there need to be consequences if this is true, and it appears to be.
- [18:44]
Dorothy Wickenden
Thanks so much, Dexter.
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Dexter Filkins
Thanks, Dorothy.
- [18:48]
Dorothy Wickenden
Dexter Filkins is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of the Forever War, an account of his experiences as a reporter in Afghanistan and Iraq. This has been the political scene from the New Yorker. You can subscribe by searching for the New Yorker in your podcast app and find more political analysis and commentary on new yorker.com Feel free to rate and review the political scene on Apple Podcasts. This program is produced by Alex Barron and Hannah Willett. For newyorker.com I'm Dorothy Wickenden.
- [19:24]
David Remnick
Hi. This is David Remnick. We've just launched a new project that I want to tell you about, the New Yorker's Midterms 2018 newsletter. Every week, our writers and editors will check in from the campaign trail to tell you exactly what's happening across the country and why it matters. The newsletter is only running through the November midterm elections, so sign up now@newyorker.com midtermsnewsletter that's newyorker.com midtermsNewsletter.
- [19:57]
Katie Drummond, Michael Coloury, and Lauren Goode
I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global editorial director. I'm Michael Coloury, Wired's director of consumer, Tech and Culture. And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show, Uncanny Valley is about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley. And right now, Silicon Valley and Washington have never been more intertwined. So each week we get together to talk about a big story, often at the intersection of tech and politics.
- [20:22]
Dexter Filkins
Right?
- [20:23]
Katie Drummond, Michael Coloury, and Lauren Goode
So whether we're talking about Trump, Coin, Doge, or Elon Musk, we will always explain how these Silicon Valley forces are affecting Washington and how they affect you. Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.
- [20:43]
Dexter Filkins
From prx.