A year after the ferocious murder of Jamal Khashoggi – suffocated in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul and then dismembered to make his body disappear -, friends and colleagues of the journalist gathered in the last place where he was seen alive. On stage, placed in front of the Saudi diplomatic delegation, were intellectuals and human rights defenders, dissidents from various authoritarian countries in the Middle East – who then found refuge in Turkey; UN rapporteur Agnès Callamard, whose investigation directly links the Saudi crown prince, Mohamed Bin Salmán, to the murder; or the then richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, owner of the newspaper, Washington Postin which Khashoggi wrote. Everyone agreed that, even with his death, the journalist had inflicted a defeat on Saudi absolutism, showing the world the true and cruel face of its strong man, condemned for this to be a pariah. They couldn’t be more wrong.
The peel is the peel, oil is oil, and Saudi Arabia, too large, influential and powerful a country in the Middle East and in the world. So Bin Salman, or MBS, as he is popularly known, only had to wait for the storm of controversy to calm down for the channel of realpolitik bring the waters back to their place. The countries, initially ashamed, have returned to signing pacts, concluding agreements, selling weapons, now openly. Jeff Bezos himself, who promised to support justice and the search for truth – it is still unknown where Khashoggi’s remains are – and who even accused MBS of hacking his phone, has done important business with the Saudis (Amazon has strengthened its presence in the country through large investments).
The first to offer MBS a crutch was Vladimir Putin: two months after the brutal assassination, the Russian president welcomed him effusively at a G20 meeting in Argentina, during which almost all other leaders tried to avoid him. The good harmony between Putin and Bin Salman meant that both countries acted in harmony on energy issues (including Saudi funds investing in Russia) and geopolitical issues, such as the war in Libya, Riyadh’s rapprochement with the Assad regime before its fall last year or the invitation to Saudi Arabia to join the BRICS group.
In the case of the United States, Trump was very careful not to be seen with MBS after the murder, much less after the CIA itself confirmed that it was the crown prince who ordered Khashoggi’s execution due to his growing criticism of Saudi absolutism. Of course, contacts with the Saudis did not stop, since Riyadh’s mediation was fundamental in one of Trump’s most important projects: the Abraham Accords to normalize relations of Middle Eastern states with Israel. With his successor, Joe Biden, at the helm, contacts with MBS have publicly resumed – the Democrat visited the country in July 2022 – the man who really holds power in Saudi Arabia, even if it is his father, Salmán bin Abdulaziz, the official head of state.
European countries have not lagged behind in the recovery of MBS, and not only because of their interest in hydrocarbons. Saudi Arabia has been one of the world’s largest arms buyers for over a decade. “Saudi Arabia’s main suppliers between 2020 and 2024 were the United States (74%), followed by Spain (10%) and France (6.2%)” underlines the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). French President Emmanuel Macron met MBS several times and the Spaniard Pedro Sánchez also visited him in 2024. As early as 2018, Sánchez justified the continuation of the sale of military equipment to Saudi Arabia – despite the Khashoggi case and its use in wars such as the one in Yemen – with the “defence of the interests of the Spanish people” through the maintenance of jobs.
Turkey was the last nation to turn its back. To demonstrate what happened in the Saudi consulate, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government shared audio and video recordings with its allies – even at the risk of thus admitting that it was blatantly spying on foreign diplomatic missions in its territory – and supported the need to criminally prosecute the intellectual authors of the murder. For this reason Ankara found itself faced with a sort of cold war with the Saudis, which led them to support opposing fronts, from Libya to the Indian Ocean.
Finally, in 2022, the Turkish court that tried in absentia those accused of Khashoggi’s murder threw in the towel and accepted the Prosecutor’s request to suspend the trial and transfer it to Saudi Arabia. This point came at a time when the Turkish government was trying to break its international isolation to overcome a critical economic situation. Since then, trade relations with Riyadh have normalized – including the purchase and sale of weapons –, the Saudi Central Bank has signed an exchange rate agreement that has helped stabilize the Turkish currency and both capitals have intensified political collaboration in scenarios such as Syria or Palestine.
So the honorary dinner offered by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, to MBS this Tuesday in Washington is nothing more than the staging of what has been happening for years. Between a lot of frills and shine-shinethe most powerful men in the world hosted the strongman of the Saudi monarchy. Trump and the main officials of his government, including the executive branch, were there. From economic power, Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, among many others. And from the world of sport – which has done so much to whiten the image of the Saudi dictatorship – the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, and the former Real Madrid player, Cristiano Ronaldo, now captain of Al Nassr, owned by the PIF sovereign fund, chaired by Bin Salmán. Trump warmly thanked the presence of the footballer, “the favorite” of his son Barron, and said that thanks to this his son “respects him more”.
In a world that is run by the networks of favors and personal relationships of these men of power – and that does so in an increasingly obscene way -, murders like Khashoggi’s are excesses that are forgiven over time, “things that happen”, as Trump said. And the journalists who ask for it are “insubordinate”.
And, despite everything, there are still many people willing to such insubordination. “Jamal defended a democratic Middle East, where freedom of expression and of the press were respected. Because of his dreams, he was feared. And ultimately assassinated,” wrote Agnès Callamard, now secretary general of Amnesty International, on the social network Russia, including China.
