Reputation of the Saudi Crown Prince may never recover after the assassination a year ago



In a region largely inured to savagery, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi a year ago has left an extraordinary impact. Rarely in modern history has the death of one man been so consequential.

When the dissident and writer walked into his country’s consulate in Istanbul on 2 October last year, Saudi Arabia was enjoying a moment in the global spotlight. Its ambitious leader had embarked on an extensive reform programme that was starting to overcome doubters.

World leaders including Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron were clamouring to be seen alongside Mohammed bin Salman, a thirtysomething prince who had promised to change the world.

All that was overturned in the minutes after Khashoggi entered the Saudi diplomatic mission, where a team of state assassins ambushed and butchered the critic and columnist – all captured on hidden microphones planted by Turkish spies.

The brutality was captured in its entirety, laying bare a premeditated mob-style hit that was soon traced to the door of the Saudi royal court. And there its stain remains 12 months on – despite Crown Prince Mohammed’s repeated denials that he had personally issued the “kill order”.

The aftershocks continue to ripple through the region’s capitals and battlefields.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mohammed bin Salman said in a television interview that he took “full responsibility” for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AP

Saudi Arabia’s travails have had a profound impact on friend and foe alike. In the year since Khashoggi’s assassination, Prince Mohammed has largely been isolated. The acclaim he enjoyed while tabling a remarkable array of reforms has given way to outrage and recrimination.

The prestige brought to the kingdom by Trump’s 2017 state visit – which reset Washington from its Obama-era pivot to Iran to a default support for Saudi Arabia – has cost the US leader.

Trump’s tough talk about alliances has stopped short at defending the desert kingdom – even after a devastating drone and missile attack on oil facilities that both countries blame on Iran.

That attack, which Washington and Riyadh insist was launched by regular Iranian forces, from Iranian soil – not Houthi proxies in Yemen who claimed responsibility – took offline half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production, and clipped 5% from the world’s daily supply.

It was described as an act of war and was widely predicted to provoke a US response. But no retaliation has come, partly because of Trump’s reluctance to commit US forces to another regional conflict, and partly because of re-election calculations. The potential fallout from defending such a tainted friend is also believed to have been a factor.

Has Saudi Arabia got away with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi? – podcast Read more

In the eyes of Saudi Arabia’s rivals, Khashoggi’s murder has derailed Prince Mohammed, 34, and lessened his family’s claim to be protector of Islam’s holiest shrines, through which the modern House of Saud draws much of its legitimacy. Iran and Turkey also lay claim to speaking on behalf of Islam and each hold stronger regional hands.

Turkey’s propaganda efforts have centred on diminishing Prince Mohammed to the point where he is no longer seen as an obvious heir to his father, King Salman.

In doing so, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan believes he has weakened an opposing axis comprised of Prince Mohammed, the United Arab Emirates’ leader, Mohammed bin Zayed, and President Sisi of Egypt.

Lining up on the other side are the Turkish leader, the Emir of Qatar and the remnants of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, many senior members of which live in exile in both countries.

The Brotherhood remains the bogeyman of Erdoğan’s rivals, yet their collective goal of weakening political Islam as a regional presence has stalled, largely due to Saudi’s loss of regional clout.

Khashoggi, who had voiced regular support for political Islam including in one of the last columns he wrote for the Washington Post, has become a cause célèbre for the Erdoğan axis and for those claiming Prince Mohammed’s reform programme was largely a smokescreen for him to grab power.

After laying low for much of the year, the Crown Prince agreed to two interviews broadcast ahead of the anniversary of Khashoggi’s death.

He told Frontline, an investigative strand on the American TV channel PBS, that because the killing “happened on my watch, I bear full responsibility”.

The collective, rather than personal, claim has done little to appease those demanding the de facto leader face global justice for the murder, which has been pinned on the 15-man team dispatched from Riyadh to lie in wait for Khashoggi.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Turkish forensic science officers leave after searching the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 18 October 2018. Photograph: Yasin Akgül/AFP/Getty Images

One of Prince Mohammed’s most trusted advisers, Saud al-Qahtani, has been fingered by Washington as the mastermind behind the operation. He has not been charged with any offence, but has been nominally removed from his roles.

Five of the alleged hit squad are facing the death penalty in Riyadh, where global demands for retribution for the crime resonate less.

Domestic agendas dominate discourse in Saudi Arabia, where Khashoggi is rarely discussed. Nor is the fate of other dissidents who have defied the Saudi state and remain in prison, such as Loujain al-Hathloul, a women’s rights activist who has been imprisoned for the last two years and is charged with undermining state security.

Many Saudis remain reluctant to speak out inside the country and are even fearful of doing so on trips abroad. “We have learned the Syrian way,” said one woman in Beirut. “We can have whatever freedoms the state says we have. Still, it’s better than nothing.”

Three months ago, guardianship laws restricting women from many life decisions, including divorce and travel, were lifted – potentially the most transformative move yet among the cultural and economic reforms that Prince Mohammed continues to roll out.

His efforts at home to remake Saudi Arabia into an Arab nationalist police state – in the mould of Abu Dhabi rather than Cairo – are continuing more or less as billed.

His bid to recast himself as a statesman, however, has failed – and may never recover.

Khashoggi’s death appears certain to define the nominal heir throughout his life and remains a threat to the destiny he sees for himself – a coronation after the death of his father, who is aged 83.

While he will probably still win the throne, Prince Mohammed’s bid to win the region is now far less certain.