En rakett slo ned i Jazan tirsdag og skapte et krater. Her er sivilforsvaret på pletten. Foto: Saudi Press Agency via AP/NTB

Biden-administrasjonen vil ha i pose og sekk: Rapporten om drapet på Jamal Kashoggi ble offentliggjort med brask og bram, til tross for at Washington Post hadde detaljene for to år siden. Administrasjonen fikk satt Saudi-Arabia i skammekroken enda en gang. Det var hensikten, og den som gned seg i hendene, var Teheran.

Lee Smith har en nådeløse analyse i theepochtimes.com:

The intelligence assessment that the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, often referred to as MBS, was responsible for killing Khashoggi was first leaked nearly two and a half years ago by anonymous U.S. officials. The purpose of the leak was to damage relations between Riyadh and Donald Trump.

Det finnes krefter i sikkerhetsapparatet og diplomatiet i Washington som med vitende og vilje lekker materiale som ødelegger forholdet til en viktig alliert. Mediene er med på leken, så folk ikke forstår at dette er mennesker som leker med storkrig i Midtøsten.

Denne gang er motivet ekstra destruktivt for alle som ønsker fred i Midtøsten. Dette er krefter som ønsker å gi Iran atombomben.

The administration is preparing to re-enter Barack Obama’s 2015 deal with Tehran and legalize the nuclear weapons program of a terror state that has been launching missile attacks on Saudi Arabia for several years. It’s hard to imagine Washington imposing a steeper penalty on Riyadh.

Det er vanskeligere å forestille seg en hardere straff for saudierne. Biden kjører kniven i MBS og vrir rundt.

Iran tar signalet. Helt siden Biden tiltrådte har Iran vist aktivitet på flere fronter. Hvorfor skulle de ikke det? De oppfordres til det av USAs oppførsel.

Smith røper flere interessante forhold: Som at Kashoggi slett ikke var noen dissident og journalist. Han skrev ikke en gang artiklene som bar hans navn.

First, Khashoggi was not, as the press asserts, a Washington Post columnist. The several opinion pieces the paper published under his name were written by others. Because he did not write English well, his articles were directed, from conception through composition, by paid agents of Qatar, Saudi Arabia’s Gulf Cooperation Council rival, who encouraged him to opine critically on his native country.

Smith sier at Obama og Iran har én ting felles: Begge er antiamerikanske. Trump har i fire år forsøkt å få amerikansk utenrikspolitikk tilbake på skinnene igjen.

Obama had downgraded the alliance with the Saudis and other U.S. Middle East partners because he wanted to realign American interests with the anti-American regime in Iran. Even before Trump exited the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, he signaled that he was jettisoning his predecessor’s destructive policy and restoring the region’s U.S.-led alliance system. Trump made his first presidential trip to Saudi Arabia to underscore the importance of a relationship that brought Saudi investment and American jobs.

Det passer anti-Trump og anti-saudi-pressen å fremstille Kashoggi som dissident. Det utløser automatisk en masse sympati i Vesten. Men Kashoggi var ingen dissident slik vi vanligvis bruker ordet. Han var en insider.

Moreover, Khashoggi was not a “dissident.” He was a Saudi insider with ties to the country’s intelligence services. He had managed media companies owned by a member of the Saudi royal family who was a longtime head of Riyadh’s general intelligence directorate. Khashoggi had once considered Osama bin Laden a friend and was sympathetic to other Islamic extremist movements. He frequently expressed anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiments on social media. Before he was killed, Khashoggi sought $2 million from Riyadh to start a think-tank in Washington, D.C. to promote Saudi interests. In other words, it seems he was using his Post articles and relationship with Doha to negotiate with Riyadh for his loyalty.

Washington-etablissementet har gått i et modus hvor de sviner til alle som er mot dem. Amerikansk middelklasse og arbeiderklasse fortjener å få arbeidsplassene eksportert til Kina, og saudierne fortjener å leve i skyggen av en iransk atombombe.

The establishment smears working-class Americans as racists and now as domestic terrorists to justify destroying them, by sending their jobs to China, opening the doors to millions of illegal immigrants, and so on. And it’s because of Khashoggi, Biden officials and its press surrogates are saying, that the Saudis deserve to live under the threat of a terror state brandishing a nuclear weapon.

Det er en hybris i denne politikken som ber om å utløse en katastrofe.

Why the Release of the Khashoggi Report Has Everything to Do With Iran

Kjøp Ruud Koopmans’ bok her!