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Editorial Saudi Arabia alone makes the case for a sea change in Britain’s foreign policy

IT MAY not surprise anyone that a probe into the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October has concluded Saudi Arabia is responsible and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the prime suspect.

Footage and recordings released then established beyond doubt that Khashoggi had been tortured, killed and dismembered by a Saudi hit squad inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, something the despotic kingdom was quickly forced to acknowledge.

By the end of November recordings obtained by Turkey appeared indicating that the order for the murder had come from the crown prince. The US Central Intelligence Agency agreed following its analysis of the evidence.

The claim that Khashoggi, a critic of bin Salman, would have been murdered in a “rogue operation” without Saudi authorities’ knowledge — as is claimed by the trial of the supposed suspects, some of whom face the death penalty, in Saudi Arabia itself — beggars belief. It has been obvious almost from the beginning that the orders came from the top.

Sadly Saudi Arabia is a US ally, home to US military bases and key to maintaining Washington’s influence across the Middle East.

It is also a valued customer of the US, British and French armaments businesses. Campaign Against Arms Trade revealed last year that Britain had licensed £4.7 billion of arms sales to the kingdom since its brutal war on Yemen began in 2015.

Tory claims that these arms are not used to target civilians are a sick joke when Saudi coalition forces have bombed hospitals, residential neighbourhoods and even school buses in their murderous, if so far futile, bid to crush the Houthi revolt in that country. 

Britain’s government is not alone in its hypocrisy. French journalists have exposed President Emmanuel Macron’s claim that French weapons sold to Saudi Arabia were only used for defensive purposes as a lie by publishing military documents seen by the president that proved otherwise.

France’s authorities are responding by threatening the journalists in question with prison.

We do not just sell the Saudis weapons. The government has long admitted providing logistical support for the war, and the wounding of five Special Boat Services troops off Yemen in March demonstrates that our military is actively involved. 

This bloody-handed alliance explains Prime Minister Theresa May’s refusal to acknowledge the fact of bin Salman’s responsibility for the extraordinarily brazen murder of a critic in another country.

The same considerations motivated US President Donald Trump to dismiss the CIA’s own assessment of the crime, as well as the parallel scandal of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s vetoing of his own State Department’s recommendation that Saudi Arabia be named and shamed for its deployment of child soldiers (again in the very Yemen conflict we are helping it fight).

The UN report saying Khashoggi was the victim of a “deliberate, premeditated execution, an extrajudicial killing for which the state Saudi Arabia is responsible,” that there is enough evidence to require an investigation of bin Salman’s role in it, and sanctions should be applied against him must not be similarly swept under the carpet.

At a time when Saudi Arabia is a key player in US attempts to start a catastrophic war against Iran, exposing the barbaric nature of its government is essential.

So too is highlighting our government’s complicity in a war on Yemen that has killed tens of thousands directly and sparked cholera outbreaks and widespread starvation.

And any spotlight shined on Saudi will further illuminate the kingdom’s murky association with fanatical jihadist groups around the world and the role of its extremist Wahhabi ideology as the inspiration for the Isis and al-Qaida terrorist organisations.

This makes a mockery of British claims that Saudi Arabia is an essential “security” partner — and provides an obvious justification for the wholesale change of foreign policy direction we need from an incoming Labour government.

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