Fulvio Scaglione

If we lived in a more or less normal world, today all Western chancelleries would be busy asking for clarifications and sending protests to the royal house of Saudi Arabia. And some governments that are more decisive than others could perhaps summon their ambassador for explanations. Instead almost everything is silent and, apart from the indiscretions artfully filtered by Turkey's secret services, a slightly embarrassed silence accompanies the fate of Jamal Khashoggi, well-known and appreciated journalist in Saudi Arabia and beyond, given that he had recently also become a columnist for the "Washington Post". Donald Trump, great supporter of the Saudis, he was silent for days and then said he was "worried", leaving it to Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, the task of challenging ridicule and calling on the Saudis for a "thorough investigation" into the journalist's fate.
The problem is that there is little to investigate. Khashoggi entered his country's consulate in Istanbul on 2 October, leaving his Turkish girlfriend on the sidewalk waiting for him. And it never came out why, the Turks let it be known, he would have been killed, then actually torn to pieces and finally taken away by a commando of fifteen agents who arrived on the same day on two private flights taking off from the Saudi capital Riyadh. There are the names, there are faces, it is known that some of them are part of the personal guard of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and that an anatomopathologist was also traveling with them, apparently charged with supervising the dismemberment of the body.
Khashoggi, moreover, he was not a fanatical opponent either , to say, some subversive who wanted to undermine the foundations of the Sunni-Wahhabi kingdom. On the contrary, he was an experienced journalist and, in his time, very inserted in the circles of the Saudi royal house. He had been part of the small delegation that accompanies the prince on his international travels several times. Unfortunately for him, in recent times he had begun to express some doubts about the validity of Mohammed bin Salman's policies. The war in Yemen, which leads to nothing among a thousand atrocities. The plan for the economic reform of the kingdom, called “Vision 2030”, that makes water. The purges against the old guard Saudi notables. Too, apparently. Not even the fact that he moved to the USA saved him.
What else is needed for a minimum of indignation? Especially in America and Europe, where the freedom of the press and journalists is an asset considered precious and as such always defended. Instead nothing or almost nothing, also by Governments as well, now it's not much, they harshly criticized Turkey for the journalists put on trial and then forced into exile. sad destiny, their. But not like being hacked to pieces with a saw in a diplomatic compound.
What happens, or rather it doesn't happen, these days it perfectly reflects the state of international relations, in which all the talk about rights and values ​​does not apply to "friends" but only to "enemies". And Saudi Arabia is too important a friend for everyone. Trump (but also Obama before him) it earns billions by supplying it with weapons and considers it fundamental, together with Israel, in the axis that should oppose the growing influence of Iran. Last April, Mohammed bin Salman made a visit to the USA in which he was honored not only at the White House but also by the super-intelligent and super-democratic bosses of Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Before landing in the USA, moreover, Salman himself had stopped in London where, bringing as a dowry 100 billions of investments for post-Brexit England, he had been welcomed with all honors, lunch with Queen Elizabeth included. And we could say more or less the same for almost all European countries.
Saudi Arabia knows this and takes advantage of it with the arrogance of someone who feels untouchable. Now there is the Khashoggi case, but it is only the latest in a long series. In August Cynthia Freeland, Foreign Minister of Canada, had dared to ask in a tweet for the release of a group of Saudi women arrested for their campaigns in favor of women's rights. In response, the Saudis kicked out the Canadian ambassador, they blocked all flights to Canada, they froze economic relations and invited thousands of Saudi students to return home.
In the 2016, because of his actions in Yemen, Saudi Arabia was included in the UN list of countries that violate the rights of children in war zones. The blackmail started immediately, later admitted by Secretary Ban Ki-moon himself: either you remove us from the list or we cut funding to the UN. And cancellation it was. With Khashoggi's disappearance it will end the same way. Too bad it goes, Mohammed bin Salman will make some phone calls, he will remember this or that matter, he will talk about the price of oil or terrorism in the Middle East. But he won't even have to bother himself, the world works like this and everyone who needs to know it already knows it