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‘Khashoggi’s murder to change US, Saudi ties’

Wednesday, 05 December 2018 9:22 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 05 December 2018 11:03 AM ]

US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks to members of the media after a closed-door briefing by Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel to members of Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee December 4, 2018 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP)

The murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi will change the relations between Washington and Riyadh, says an academic, adding that the US Senate will impose its will despite President Donald Trump’s unwavering support for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The comments came after top Republican senators blamed bin Salman for ordering the murder of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

“This is going to weaken Trump because the Senate is going to take a role here. Remember under the constitution, the president conducts foreign policy with the advice and consent of the Senate … There is going to be a definite challenge to Trump’s way of handling this and frankly he is not going to prevail in this instance. The Senate is going to exercise its will and change the relation between the United States and Saudi Arabia,” James H. Fetzer, professor emeritus at University of Minnesota Duluth, told Press TV in an interview on Wednesday.

“It is an embarrassment that the president of the United States did not assert the moral authority of the United States by condemning this atrocity which is clearly conducted at the hands of the crown prince … This is the test of the moral authority of the United States. Trump has failed but the Senate will do its best to reconstitute the situation in a far more appropriate response,” he added.

Khashoggi, 59, a one-time royal insider, who had recently been critical of Mohammed bin Salman, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. For weeks, Riyadh denied any involvement in the journo’s disappearance but under growing international pressure, it eventually acknowledged that the man had been killed and dismembered in a premeditated murder.

However, the Saudi regime has sought to distance the heir to the throne from the assassination despite emerging evidence alleging otherwise. A recent report by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) suggested that bin Salman had been behind the gruesome crime.

The killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, has strained Riyadh’s relations with the West and battered bin Salman’s image abroad. Saudi Arabia claims that the prince had no prior knowledge of the murder.