The murder of dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi has left Saudi Arabia in its “weakest diplomatic position since the horrific terror attacks of September 11,” according to a top Saudi analyst in Washington known for his careful analysis of Middle East politics.
But while Ali Shihabi, who heads the Washington-based Arabia Foundation think tank, suggested Riyadh may be to blame for creating its own predicament, he also said that any discussion of trying to diplomatically isolate Saudi Arabia, or remove Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from power, is “neither realistic nor prudent.”
“As a member of the G20 and one of the world’s leading oil producers, the kingdom is a linchpin in the global economy and energy market,” Mr. Shihabi argued in an analysis circulated to reporters Friday, asserting that the Trump administration’s policy of economically isolating Iran — particularly by sanctioning Iranian oil — is going to depend on Riyadh “maximizing its [own] oil output.”
His assertions underscore a delicate situation that the Khashoggi affair has created for the Trump administration, which has depended heavily on Saudi Arabia as Washington’s go-to Gulf Arab ally against Iran, which Riyadh views as its primary rival for influence over the wider Middle East.
With the sharp oil sector sanctions that President Trump vows to impose on Iran by Nov. 4 anticipated to take as much as a million barrels a day of Iranian crude off the global market, analysts say the White House is banking on the Saudis to make up for the shortfall in order to head off a potential price jump in the cost of oil worldwide.
But Saudi Arabia’s reliability as a partner has been thrown into question by the Khashoggi affairs — particularly amid allegations that Khashoggi, a critic of Crown Prince Mohammed who wrote columns for The Washington Post, was killed on orders from the highest levels of the Saudi royal family.
Riyadh has staunchly denied the allegations. But Mr. Shihabi’s analysis Friday argued that Khashoggi’s death inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 was preceded by a “series of Saudi missteps that had already left many questioning the country’s trajectory.”
Among them, Mr. Shihabi wrote, have been the arrests of female activists in Saudi Arabia, a messy Saudi-German business dispute and a biting Saudi-Canadian diplomatic crisis over alleged human rights abuses by Riyadh.
This is not to mention the “imbroglio surrounding Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri,” Mr. Shihabi wrote, referring to global headlines that swirled a year ago when it appeared Mr. Hariri was placed under house arrest inside Saudi Arabia as part of what Lebanese analysts claimed was a Saudi plan to unravel a coalition government he had formed in Lebanon with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
His assertions are a departure from many Saudi nationals who’ve largely avoided saying anything that could be perceived as criticism of Riyadh or Crown Prince Mohammed in the wake of the Khashoggi murder, an event that other non-Saudi analysts say spread fear through the ranks of Saudi intellectuals living outside the kingdom.
But Mr. Shihabi, a former international banker with degrees from Princeton and Harvard, has been outspoken since founding the Arabia Foundation think tank last year and went to lengths in his analysis Friday to simultaneously defend Saudi Arabia as “one of the last bastions of stability in an anarchic Middle East.”
“It is also a vital intelligence asset in the wars against al-Qaeda and ISIS and a key buffer in the effort to contain [Iran’s] policy of revolutionary expansionism,” he wrote, arguing that Saudi Arabia is “surrounded by peril in the form of Sunni jihadi and Iran-supported Shia jihadi movements committed to its downfall.”
“Crown Prince Mohammed], whatever his faults may be, is not weak,” Mr. Shihabi wrote. “He is a hard and resolute leader in a very hard and dangerous neighborhood. The importance of such strength cannot be underestimated, although it certainly needs to be tempered by wise counsel.”
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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