Saudi Arabia's myopia is the cause of the Khashoggi blunder
We must give credit where credit is due: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his minions may have authored the incident that captures the full flavor of Talleyrand’s observation “It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder.”
Mohammed bin Salman’s myopia about Turkey and the United States contributed to his, and the kingdom’s, predicament in the wake of the death of the activist-journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In his imaginings of how it would all go down, he never considered the most important element of any covert operation (or crime) – the getting-away-with-it part.
Did Mohammed bin Salman consider Turkey a lesser Muslim country than Saudi Arabia, “the Land of the Two Holy Mosques," and thus a killing field to use at will? Or did he forget that Turkey is a country with modern institutions, membership in NATO, and some skills – including, to his regret, forensic science.
Turkey’s reaction to Khashoggi’s disappearance is likely motivated not just by concern that a capital crime was committed on its territory, but fury that the Saudis though they could fool them.
The Saudis apparently thought a hit squad bigger than the national soccer team, traveling under their true names, and arriving on private jets would go undiscovered. The fact that the Israelis, who play in the Premier League of espionage, got caught in the Dubai killing of Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, should have given the Saudis pause. And once Khashoggi emigrated to the United States, he may have been out of Riyadh’s reach.
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/412504-saudi-arabias-myopia-is-the-cause-of-the-khashoggi-blunder
