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Don't Ditch Riyadh in a Fit of Righteousness

(Wall Street Journal) Walter Russell Mead - The murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, was a horror. But the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey's President Erdogan, and the ayatollahs of Iran are huddled over the corpse, hoping to turn a political profit from the death of an innocent man. After Mr. Khashoggi's death, even the most naive observer can see that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman is at best a modernizing autocrat, using dictatorial power to drag his country into the future. Saudi Arabia is not an authoritarian caterpillar metamorphosing into a liberal butterfly. But neither are Turkey and Iran. And on crucial issues, U.S. and Saudi interests are aligned. To do what the Iran-deal chorus and the Erdogan and Muslim Brotherhood apologists want - to dissolve the U.S.-Saudi alliance in a frenzy of righteousness - would be an absurd overreaction that plays into the hands of America's enemies. The writer is professor of foreign affairs and humanities at Bard College.
2018-10-16 00:00:00
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