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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman becoming a liability, embarrassment to US

3 Dec 2018 06:06

Islam Times - Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has become a “liability” to the United States but Washington is not in a position to take action against him, an American analyst says.

Keith Preston, director of the Attackthesystem.org, said Washington was feeling embarrassed by bin Salman’s actions but couldn’t do anything about it.  

“The American government is currently in a very difficult situation because the Saudi Arabian government is a staunch ally of the United States and it is obvious that the Trump administration wants to maintain that relationship,” Preston said.

US President Donald Trump has so far resisted growing calls from both sides of the isle in Congress for a strong response to the Saudi regime’s murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, arguing that doing so would endanger deep financial and political ties between the two sides and push Riyadh towards Russia.

Trump’s reluctance to go after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite growing evidence pointing to his role, became clearer after he undermined a CIA assessment that the prince was indeed aware of the murder.

The biggest reason is the risk that losing Saudi Arabia’s services would pose to Israel, Trump has admitted.

“Israel would be in big trouble without Saudi Arabia,” Trump said after a Thanksgiving Day telephone call with military personnel from his Mar-a-Lago resort home in Florida.

“If you look at Israel, Israel would be in big trouble without Saudi Arabia,” he added. “So what does that mean, Israel is going to leave? You want Israel to leave? We have a very strong ally in Saudi Arabia.”

Preston said the Tel Aviv regime was in fact part of a “triangular relationship” between Washington and Riyadh.

The media factor
The American media viewed Khashoggi’s murder as an attack by Riyadh against their interests and that is why two months later, the topic keeps getting major coverage, Preston argued.

“The media companies are also some of the most powerful interests in the United States,” he said, adding the media have grown into an important part of “the American elite.”

Preston said the media’s retaliatory attacks against Saudi Arabia have paved the way for a wider coverage of the Saudi-led war on Yemen for the first time.

Concluding his remarks, Preston said the prince’s policies had even overshadowed the ongoing Group 20 summit in Argentina.

Story Code: 764546