By Tom Gallagher

The fate of Jamal Khashoggi brought back more than a few memories and some difficult thoughts. I spent most of the 1980s living in Riyadh as head of Middle East practice for a major international law firm. Among my clients were senior officials in the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments (one later served as head of Saudi Intelligence) as well as Americans doing business there. My last assignment before moving back to the U.S. was representing worldwide lenders in a major restructuring of debt owed by Jamal’s uncle, Adnan Khashoggi. When this story first broke, then, it was not difficult to envision what had happened and the scenario that would likely result.

This is so, in part, because in one of my life’s great ironies, my first major task upon arriving back in New York in 1988 was acting as Merv Griffin’s lawyer in his epic battle with Donald Trump over control of Resorts International. I spent seven months going head to head with Trump and his lawyers. That experience, and my continuing observations of Trump in the years that have followed, foreshadowed exactly what has occurred in his administration’s handling of the situation thus far.

I do not purport to be an expert in international affairs. However, having lived and worked around the world for fifty years, as a senior partner in a major law firm and later as a senior executive or CEO of several Fortune 500 companies, I have learned a few things along the way.

It’s obvious that the Trump administration has put itself in an extraordinarily difficult box. It has chosen to abandon the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA), the nuclear weapons agreement with Iran.  This go-it-alone course, with its campaign to isolate and sanction Iran, means it now needs the Saudis as a counterbalance. Hence the close embrace of King Salman and his son Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the crown prince.

Anyone who has lived and worked in Saudi Arabia knows such an embrace carries enormous risks. Many of the actions of MBS demonstrate them. He has purported to lead a liberalization of the country (women driving, mullahs controlled, etc.), for example, but his sweeping measures — taking control of the entire governing infrastructure — have revealed a strongly autocratic vision.

Although Saudi Arabia has been ruled by the Al-Saud family since 1932, it has largely governed by consensus within that family. Power was typically shared out, with positions of authority spread within the family. Similarly, the line of succession was not father to son, but brother to brother. Salman and his son have upended that process, and in so doing have solidified control over virtually every element of the government. They have replaced everyone in positions of authority with loyalists. The separate power bases such as head of the National Guard are no longer effective checks on power.

The consequences of this consolidation in a tightly controlled culture make it exceedingly difficult to believe that the actions in the Turkish consulate were not sanctioned by MBS. The evolving cover story, that “suspects” went to Istanbul because Khashoggi had expressed an interest in returning to Saudi Arabia, and that he died when a “fight and quarrel” broke out, is laughable. The attempt to bolster this fiction by firing two senior advisers and “arresting” 18 others leaves the fundamental issue unresolved.

The problem is that the Trump administration has left itself no maneuvering room. Its hard line Iran policy means it needs the Saudis. Much as politicians may fulminate about a “toxic” prince, Trump is now hostage to whatever decision the ailing King Salman makes. Given the iron fist MBS has displayed in remaking the power structure in the Kingdom, any attempt at replacement might (and probably would) result in a major upheaval.

In “the old days,” one can imagine a majlis or council of senior princes gathered to review the consequences of MBS’s decisions — not just Khashoggi’s death but also his controversial war in Yemen and his roundup and arrest of major princes and business leaders. In the past, they might have pushed for a replacement, perhaps his deposed predecessor. Now, even though some of the royal family have voiced concerns about MBS, firing the crown prince hardly seems likely.

The fundamental problem is that Trump’s transactional approach to every issue continually paints him into a corner. Rejection of the Trans Pacific Partnership, despite the overwhelming advice of thoughtful economists, handed China a major advantage. Rejection of the Paris Climate Accords, and even the notion of human-influenced climate change, in the face of an overwhelming scientific consensus, has led him to embrace energy policies that defy reality (coal for example). Rejection of NAFTA and his negotiating posture have led to relations with Canada and Mexico that will make it difficult for them to partner in any risky propositions. Rejection of DACA and his policy of family separation have polarized American society and inflamed passions to the point where any meaningful compromise on immigration policy has vanished.

The final Khashoggi scenario seems entirely predictable. The “investigation” now underway will conclude that, although MBS perhaps authorized an effort to bring Jamal back to Saudi Arabia, he did not authorize or expect that deadly force would be used. Scapegoats (the 18 arrested) will be identified and “prosecuted” in Saudi Arabia in an opaque judicial process entirely controlled by MBS. When I lived in Riyadh, the penalty for murder was a public beheading on Fridays in what was known as Chop-chop Square. It is doubtful such a fate will await any of Khashoggi’s assailants. More likely they will be “disappeared.”

Some nagging questions will remain. If this evolving cover story is accepted by the Trump administration, what does it say about who we are as a country? Where do our principles intersect with “realpolitik”? Does “needing” Saudi Arabia, because we apparently fear Iran more, mean that we simply swallow hard and move on? Accept the slander of Khashoggi’s reputation now being peddled by Trump’s sycophants?

The parallel story of Omar Abdulaziz, a 27-year old Saudi living in Canada (another effort to “voluntarily” return a Saudi dissident back to Riyadh), confirms that MBS has embarked on an iron-fist strategy to eliminate dissent. The arrest of Omar’s brothers in Saudi following his failure to agree to return, and the arrest of women who protested the driving ban even after the ban was lifted, are further examples of the same strategy.

With all this in mind, how are Saudi Arabia and Iran so different? Is the treatment of dissidents any longer a distinguishing characteristic? And if not, why should we embrace MBS while sanctioning Iran? The cognitive dissonance is stunning.

Having dealt with Trump in the past, I have no illusions that he will easily reverse course on this. But is acceptance of this cover story the best strategy? It seems a dangerous signal to his other autocratic friends in Russia, China, Korea and the Philippines. If the outcome of the heinous murder of a U.S. resident father with two U.S, citizen children is simply an acceptance of a sham investigation, Trump’s posture in the inevitable future crises will have no credibility.

Tom Gallagher was for 20 years a partner in the law firm of Gibson Dunn and Crutcher. During a leave from the firm he was chief counsel for a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee handling nominations for attorney general and Supreme Court. In 1997, he joined Hilton Hotels Corporation as its executive vice president and general counsel, leading the spinoff of its gaming businesses into a new NYSE company, Park Place Entertainment. He subsequently became CEO; Park Place was renamed Caesars Entertainment, then the world’s largest casino resort company. Gallagher now serves on the board of the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities (and is a co-founder), the Black Mountain Institute, Vegas PBS, the UNLV Foundation and the Desert Research Institute Foundation. He is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School. He is also a donor to The Nevada Independent. View all our donors here.