Thoughts on a culture of chaos that continually plays its deadly, dystopic sameness, and ending with what I think is the real big picture: it is about Iran — and the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel relationship
20 October 2018 (Crete, Greece) — Phew. Well. That has now been cleared up.
Yesterday, Saudi Arabia said that Jamal Khashoggi died in a fight in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul and announced the firing of two senior officials close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (commonly referred to as “MBS”). King Salman, the Saudi monarch, issued two royal decrees sacking Ahmed Assiri, the deputy intelligence chief, and Saud al-Qahtani, a royal court adviser. Both Assiri and Qahtani are considered by U.S. intelligence and Turkish intelligence to be “the closest confidants of MBS”, the king’s son and Saudi’s de facto leader.
According to the press release of the Saudi attorney-general preliminary investigations showed “discussions between [Khashoggi] and people who met him during his visit to the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul led to a fight” which resulted in his death.
Still not clear … and not noted in the official press release … is what happened to Khashoggi’s body. One Saudi government source says the job was “outsourced” to a local “disposal unit”. Turkish intelligence says that on the day of Khashoggi’s death they tracked two Saudi consulate vehicles that went to the nearby Belgrad forest and they have searched the area. They have not disclosed the results of that search. But it could be a red herring (see below).
But no worries. Donald Trump said Saudi Arabia’s statements were “credible”.
Three elements of this case have intrigued me:
1. the selective disclosure of evidence by the various intelligence services. Drip, drip, drip — carefully doled out so that the trail of evidence leads to MBS. It is perfectly suited for a media-consuming American public weary of domestic elections. And, of course, Khashoggi was a journalist, so the US media is taking it personally. And it’s sadly telling in a country that elected a reality TV star as president. But the European press is also lapping it up, too
2. the clever way the Saudi government has used the Western press to run various trial balloons of “ok, here is REALLY what happened” … and actually eliciting analysis and response from a wide swath of members of the press
3. why the West got MBS wrong: they conflated two things: (1) social liberalization (allowing women to drive, permitting cinemas in the kingdom again, etc.) and (2) political liberalization (i.e., political accountability, respect for due process, and protection of human rights)
Like many people reading this post, I have lived in a world seemingly corralled by algorithms, so when I travel to the Middle East I must bring to my soul an element of chaos to a culture that continually plays its deadly, dystopic sameness. I am fortunate because I have made many trips, usually bracketed by technology conferences in Tel Aviv and Amman. But now I travel and meet and write purely as fact-finding missions, trips of my own in keeping with a personal agenda. There is an Italian phrase that describes the people (Arabs, Greeks, Italians, etc.) who populate the Mediterranean … “una faccia, una razza” (one face, one race) … that is far too simple an expression but meant to capture a similar set of values, religions, customs, food, etc. across the region. I spend most of my time in and around the Med but not enough in the core of the Middle East and that was my intent – to understand.
I have traveled across Israel and all through the West Bank (next stop: Iran in January) – eating/shopping/talking with people in Ashkelon, Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, etc. but also Hebron, Jericho, Nablus and Ramallah. And Amman and Zarq.
And I have had a multitude of conversations with journalists, political pundits, intelligence officers .. such people as Hassan Barari (Arab journalist), Micah Halpern (journalist for The Jerusalem Post), Amos Yadlin (former head of Israeli military intelligence), and a host of others .. plus just “everyday” people I encountered who sometimes seemed to be careless of hardship and risk and invited me into their homes.
I wanted to air out the brutal Middle East geopolitics and the powerful regional and international allies (and foes) that have acted with indifference.
So let me try and unpack some of these elements in the Khashoggi story.
Why the West got MBS wrong
The brightest light shone by Khashoggi through his murder is, of course, on the morally repugnant nature of the regime that rules the nation he fled. The nauseating details of his killing, according to Turkish leaks – the bone saw; the instruction from the lead limb-chopper, a doctor, to his colleagues to put on headphones and listen to music to distract themselves from the gruesomeness of their task; the hasty repaint of the walls of the Istanbul consulate – confirm what we already knew. The House of Saud is itself soaked in blood.
And so there has been a lot of soul searching in Western media and business circles about why people “got MBS wrong.” The main line of reasoning goes something like this: he was a young reformer who seemed ready to modernize Saudi’s deeply conservative society and diversify its oil-dependent economy, but then he turned out to be an autocrat with a brutal streak and … suddenly people are shocked!!
As I indicated at the beginning of this piece, this thinking conflates two things: [1] social liberalization (i.e., the transformative steps of allowing women to drive, curbing the religious police, or permitting cinemas in the kingdom again) and [2[ political liberalization (i.e., political accountability, respect for due process, and protection of human rights).
In an ideal world, those things might go together, but in the real world they don’t have to. In fact, in a situation where internal opposition to the plans of MBS were so strong – a Saudi contact of mine said it was coming both from jilted rivals in the royal family and conservative clerics alike – his backers saw his autocratic inclinations as a feature, rather than a bug, of his controversial bid to remake Saudi society. He was viewed as an authoritarian modernizer (think Lee Kwan Yew or Kemal Ataturk or even Xi Jinping) rather than a democratic reformer. Václav Havel he most certainly is not.
The particularly egregious, sadistic, and high-profile killing of Khashoggi has tarnished the crown prince’s image abroad in a way that neither his shakedown of wealthy Saudi rivals, nor his jailing of women’s right’s activists, nor the casualties of his military campaign in Yemen had done before (Yemen being a far more egregious slaughter, aided and abetted by the U.S. government). But it is not because he’s an autocrat per se – it’s because of the colder calculation among his backers that the liabilities of his judgment, impulses, and apparent brutality suddenly loom larger than the promises of his social reforms.
Saudi Arabia is at risk of becoming a pariah state. The royal court in Riyadh – including King Salman bin Abdulaziz – surely realizes that this situation cannot continue. And nobody knows for sure what the Saudi royals are thinking, but as my Saudi contact told me “nobody would challenge King Salman if he replaces his son. Most people patronized by MBS are recent appointees and should not be expected to put up a fight against King Salman”.
But an intelligence source told me based on intercepts he has seen it is unclear if the aging King Salman fully understands that damage MBS has done to the kingdom – tarnished its reputation through reckless wars, detentions, torture, and now murder, alienated the broader royal family, shattered its old consensus. Saudi Arabia has had the time and the money to transform itself into a modern state that respects basic human rights and freedoms, but it has avoided that path. I really see little hope of change.
And speaking of the intelligence community …
Last week I was in Frankfurt, Germany attending the Frankfurt Book Fair, the largest event I attend each year. Even with my entire European-based media staff (5 people) still impossible to completely cover. Just by the numbers:
- 7,500+ exhibitors
- 290,000+ visitors
- 127 countries exhibiting
- 4,200+ events/sessions/presentation
- 10,000+ journalists/bloggers registered to attend
- spread out across 372,000 square meters: 12 halls, each with 2-3 floors
And politics, politics, politics … and more politics … held center stage. Political books dominated. International and country-specific. Khashoggi was mentioned throughout. The Saudi Arabia booth was practically empty. Although technology books gave politics a run for its money. But there it was also dystopic. Most of the technology books addressed our “dark ages” – that our new information technology was supposed to be a function of enlightenment, a searchlight of science for good that unfortunately has amplified the heart of human darkness and brought us a crazed barbarism. More next week in my book fair wrap-up.
I mention this because one of my long-time cyber pals lives in Frankfurt. He is a former German intelligence community “black ops” chap who now works in the telecom community. We hook up every year at the Mobile World Congress and at the Munich Security Conference. We met for breakfast one day and discussed the Khashoggi affair. He let me record him and gave me permission to use the material provided I redacted certain parts. Here is part of the transcript as a jumping off point to a discussion on the careful dissemination of intelligence by the Turkish and American intelligence communities:
“What constantly baffles me is how Americans (and I mean business, really) just don’t understand the gravity of cyber breaches. Just one example, and I do not want to spend our time on this point, so just let me say this …
When we (meaning the intelligence community) determined that [xxx] had hacked into the servers of American retailer [xxx] in 2015, we approached them. They had not reported it. They said the hacker had taunted the system administrator until they paid him roughly $5,000 to explain how he hacked their server. They actually felt proud. They felt they had got off scot free. They did not report it.
But the hackers were not after $5,000. We [German and xxx intelligence] found out through our own unrelated query that they had stolen the details of 100,000+ credit card users from that retailer, which they combed for .gov and .mil email addresses, and then sent the results to superiors at ISIS. ISIS then tracked these people through social media (their sophistication still astounds me) to determine where they were, where they might be based (Facebook and Twitter plus other SM analysis and public databases) and then found out where some of these people were, and they published the results as a kill list on the dark web.
They made it look like a ransom attempt when actually it was being used for terrorism. Not reporting seemingly inconsequential breaches can impact all our other investigations.
JAMAL KHASHOGGI
Look, US intelligence intercepts everybody so the stories they captured discussions among Saudi officials to capture Khashoggi are going to be 100% true. Why they didn’t warn Khashoggi I don’t know. You are in a murky world of duty-to-disclose via-a-vis a foreign national on foreign soil, with the fact he was a U.S. green card holder. We sort of have a “hey-you-might-get-killed-if-you-go-there” rule but it is wrapped in political considerations and the risk of divulging intelligence sources.
And Turkey knows what is going on in every diplomatic mission on their soil unless agents are operating from safe rooms. All the equipment the Turkish IC has is U.S. supplied equipment so they certainly know what went on inside the consulate. The U.S. intel community relies on them. And look … the NSA has its own methods so in my opinion they were collecting the same info, the same recordings as the Turkish IC.
And Turkey intelligence service is very, very good. They have an enormous database (facial+) to track the presence of Saudi intelligence officers … any intel officers …. on their soil. They have an enormous facial database … provided in part by NSA, part their own … plus a lot of the NSA “cool tools”. And forget all these “animosity” stories planted in the press of “we hate you, you hate us, we do not cooperate”. These intel services constantly trade info. Look, it is only because of Israeli intel services that the King of Jordan is still alive. The Israeli-Jordan intel communities work hand-in-glove. Israel has enough problems. An unstable, rogue Jordan? Not on their watch”.
He made numerous other points but rather than the transcript, herein a summary of his key thoughts:
*Be mindful of the Turkish leaks, drip by drip. There is a calculated media strategy here. Erdogan knows how to play the media. He has made sure the case remains front-page news around the world.
*And they have been careful. The recordings are being closely guarded by Turkish officials because they do not want to reveal whether they had placed listening devices inside the consulate, or received them from an informant whose position would be endangered.
*But it has a deeper agenda: push the US to pressure Saudi Arabia — all the while shielding the Turkish government behind the news media to avoid an open and potentially damaging diplomatic rupture with the Saudis.
*I saw these initial reports of the existence of the audio recordings as a threat by Turkish officials to maintain pressure on Saudi Arabia, but also on the Trump administration, to resolve the issue to Turkey’s taste.
*Erdogan hoped Trump and the Saudis would take the exit path of throwing someone senior under the bus. That’s what he wanted. But when Trump starting defending MBS — voila, more details released
*My guess is they know exactly where Khashoggi body lies. And factor in the authorities could be leading a wild goose chase through that “vans were sent to the woods” story.
*And look. At one level it is all about money. Turkey seeking financial support from Saudi Arabia. I am sure the intel community knows exactly what Erdogan is demanding. But the policy of official leaks has been clearly to prevent a complete whitewash of the disappearance.
*My view of why Khashouggi was killed: Khashouggi was in touch with individuals who were seized by the MBS security team, beaten and forced to sign away part of their wealth. If you recall, this all happened at the Ritz Hotel in Riyadh where the detainees were held, tortured, and in one case killed. Khashouggi knew all of this and was writing a book, or an article, focused on what went on in the Ritz Hotel. One of MY intel sources told me the US intelligence community was monitoring all of Kashoggi’s communications and briefed the White House on them. Kushner attended those briefings. So, while in Riyadh, in an attempt to endear himself, could not Kushner divulge all of that to MBS? I mean, we now know Kushner made at least two undisclosed trips to Riyadh. So MBS decides Khashouggi had to be killed. Based on their relation with Kushner, I am sure the Saudis believed that the US would support them unconditionally.
THE BIG PICTURE
The United States and Saudi Arabia have been the best of best friends since 1945, when Franklin Roosevelt met with Saudi Arabia’s founding king, Abdulaziz, onboard the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal to strike the deal of the century: Washington would provide the security and Riyadh would provide the oil. This was one day after the famous “Big Three” meeting at the Yalta Conference in Crimea: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin. That Yalta meeting has received a lot of analysis. The USS Quincy meeting … not so much but far, far more important.
That alliance has held for more than seven decades. It held through the Cold War; it held even after 9/11 when 15 of the 19 hijackers who brought down the Twin Towers turned out to be Saudi nationals.
NOTE: those of you with a good memory of the events of 9/11 will remember that when U.S. airspace was reopened on 13 September 2001 select Saudi nationals were allowed to fly out on chartered jets. The “9/11 Commission” said it did not appear that political intervention facilitated their departure but a number of years later investigative journalists would discovery members of the Saudi royal family were clearly being protected.
But now bizarrely, and belatedly, since Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by government agents inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey a growing number of US politicians and pundits seem to have turned on the Kingdom and its belligerent young crown prince, MBS. Well, maybe. Since we now know it was a “fist fight” perhaps the status quo will be preserved, after all.
The conventional wisdom: Saudi Arabia has support from the neocons, from the Trump administration, even from the State of Israel, because they buy lots of weapons and sell lots of oil, and they give lots of money to Donald Trump personally. Important though all of this is, no. That’s not it. It’s about geopolitics, it’s about power. It’s about the Iranian elephant in the room.
I will explain.
Contain Iran. Sanction Iran. Showdown with Iran. Cut off/reduce their oil output. To make that strategy work, the Trump administration is counting on its relationship with the Saudis to keep global oil flowing. Which is why you see the three anti-Iran Musketeers … Trump, Netanyahu and MBS … sticking together through thick and thin, through gruesome murders and beyond. And employing their spinners and propagandists in D.C. and London and elsewhere.
But it is not the U.S. that needs that strategy. It is the Saudis that need that this strategy. It’s the Saudis that have been pushing this strategy together with the Israelis. Because prior to this we had a nuclear deal that was working and you had the Obama Administration that actually was trying to slowly but surely REDUCE America’s dependence on Saudi Arabia. Trump has done the opposite and bizarrely is now making the argument: “well, we need the Saudis to counter Iran”. We don’t need to counter Iran. It’s the Saudis that need the U.S. to counter Iran.
The Obama nuclear deal was not just about the nuclear issue. It signified that the United States after 40 years had come to terms with one reality in the region – Iran is a major power. That is why John Kerry was running around the world as soon as the nuclear deal was struck. He was going around the world telling people: “Trade with Iran. You have to make sure that this deal works by providing Iran with the economic benefits we promised them.” It was the OPPOSITE of containment. This terrified the Saudis and Israelis. It meant that in their perspective, they were abandoned by the United States. They had to go and fight the Iranian rivalry on their own instead of being able to have the United States with its massive power come and tip the scale in their favor.
It is far beyond this post to provide infinite detail but some points:
- Israel considers Iran to be its existential threat.
- And the Saudis and the Emiratis have over the last several years, or more than a decade, recognized that their best path to power in Washington is to cozy up with Israel.
- Now, that has been a balancing act because they don’t actually recognize the country and so they need a different rhetoric back home than they need in Washington.
- But their respective US ambassadors have become good friends and they kind of allow Israel to carry it through Congress in some ways. Now the Emiratis and the Saudis also pump Washington full of cash.
- But cash alone doesn’t do it. You also need the political cover and the political cover is Israel. And so, to the extent that Israel wants a confrontation with Iran, the Saudis and Emiratis also want it – Emiratis slightly less so – but if it gets them closer to Israel, which then gets them closer to the United States, then they’re willing to go along with it.
- And then the Saudis and Israelis got lucky. Donald Trump got elected. A man who has no understanding whatsoever of geopolitics and they managed to quickly convince him – to the extent that I think he genuinely starts to believe it – that their fight with Iran is America’s fight with Iran.
Will there be a war with Iran? Israeli certainly wants it, as does U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton. I don’t think … I hope … that’s the way it’s going to play out. But I will end with part of a conversation I had with one of my intel community contacts:
“The Iranians have the capacity to hit U.S. targets and interests throughout the region. If they get a sense that this is going to be a war, that it is the final war. That this is a war for their survival. They’re going to throw everything out and they’re going to be expanding the war. They know that their only chance of defeating the United States is not by defeating the U.S. but by surviving the war. And that can only happen if they don’t allow the U.S. to choose the battlefield. The Iranians will choose the battlefield and that means the entire region will become part of that battlefield.
Example? The U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Through its influence with the government in Iraq Iranian forces have effectively surrounded it. So if you start bombing Iran, then the thousands of Americans who are in that Embassy are gone. All the intel agencies know this.
My worry? The conventional wisdom has been we won’t consciously go to war with Iran, wittingly, that it’s the kind of accidental war because you have people like Trump who run their mouths and say something stupid, do something stupid. And Netanyahu and MBS, what do these three leaders have in common? They’re all really incompetent and bad at leading. And Netanyahu’s probably the best of the three, and that’s not saying much”
You might not think there’s a link between the gruesome killing of a journalist inside a consulate in Turkey and Middle East geopolitics but there is. There’s a reason why the US and Israel have buddied up with the Saudi government, with MBS, and that reason is Iran. The people who want a war with Iran aren’t going to let Jamal Khashoggi’s death get in their way. To answer the question posed in the title of this piece: the extrajudicial death by dismemberment does have bearing …. but in the wrong way.