Strategic Argument and Areas of Debate
The paper highlights the profound strategic dilemma wherein Saudi Arabia’s aggressive counter-revolutionary doctrine, designed to consolidate regional hegemony, ultimately undermined its international legitimacy through the state-sponsored assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. This operation inadvertently empowered Turkey as a dominant regional actor, exposing the fundamental contradiction between Riyadh’s heavily funded reformist image and its reliance on authoritarian suppression.
Executive Summary
This report examines how the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi exposes the structural fragility of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s leadership and the aggressive counter-revolutionary posture of Saudi Arabia following the Arab Spring. It traces the geopolitical collision between Riyadh and Turkey, exacerbated by differing approaches to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Astana process concerning Iran, and Ankara’s expanding regional military footprint. The incident has profoundly damaged the Trump administration’s uncritical backing of the Saudi regime, empowering President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with crucial diplomatic leverage. Ultimately, the crisis reveals how Saudi efforts to project modernisation are structurally incompatible with their increasingly violent institutionalisation of domestic and foreign policy.
Analytical Framework and Key Drivers
Counter-Revolutionary State Identity: Saudi Arabia reconstructed its national identity post-Arab Spring (starting in 2011) by framing the Muslim Brotherhood and regional democratic movements as existential threats to regime survival.
Weaponisation of Sectarianism: Riyadh deliberately deployed a highly sectarian religious discourse post-1979, portraying itself as the defender of Sunni Islam against the perceived expansionist plots of Iran to delegitimise domestic and regional opposition.
Geopolitical Rivalry with Turkey: The AK Party’s rise to power in 2002 initially boosted economic ties, but Ankara’s support for pro-democracy forces and historical reconciliation strategies deeply threatened Saudi Arabia’s self-proclaimed leadership of the Sunni Muslim world.
Transactional American Diplomacy: The Trump administration enabled Mohammed bin Salman’s aggressive foreign policy, reinforcing a Saudi grand strategy dependent almost entirely on US executive protection rather than regional consensus.
Binary Paradigm of Dissent: The Saudi establishment views intellectual moderation and reformist calls, such as those championed by Jamal Khashoggi’s proposed Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), as fundamentally intolerable deviations from their rigid ideological control.
Strategic Assessment & Empirical Findings
- The October 2nd 2018 murder of Khashoggi resulted in the arrest of 18 Saudis and the sacking of two top aides to Mohammed bin Salman, obliterating millions of dollars spent on international public relations efforts to brand the regime as reformist.
- Bilateral trade between Turkey and Saudi Arabia peaked at approximately $5 billion annually by 2011, but relations precipitously declined due to the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar and Turkish military expansion into Somalia, Qatar, and Sudan.
- The Saudi establishment views the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) as a severe structural liability, exacerbating paranoia regarding influential insiders like Khashoggi who possessed intimate knowledge of Saudi intelligence operations during the 1979-1993 Operation Cyclone.
- Mohammed bin Salman’s authoritarian consolidation was starkly demonstrated in November 2017 when at least 11 royal family members and dozens of ministers were confined at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh under the guise of an anti-corruption purge.
- The botched assassination severely damaged the Saudi economic vision, causing the Tadawul All-Share Index to plummet by 7 per cent (the most since 2016) and triggering mass corporate withdrawals from the Davos in the Desert conference.
Geopolitical Trajectories & Policy Risks
- Saudi Arabia’s Dependency on US Executive Protection: The survival of Mohammed bin Salman’s foreign policy relies heavily on shielding from the Trump administration, meaning potential US congressional sanctions risk destabilising Riyadh’s military and economic strategies across the Middle East.
- Turkey’s Exploitation of Diplomatic Leverage: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan now holds a profound strategic advantage over Riyadh, possessing the capacity to selectively weaponise intelligence regarding the consulate murder to force Saudi concessions while managing Turkey’s own $700 billion economic debt vulnerability.
- Institutional Degradation in Saudi Governance: The empowerment of inexperienced loyalists like Saud Al Qahtani creates an inherently volatile decision-making environment, ensuring future Saudi regional interventions will likely remain erratic, poorly executed, and highly damaging to international stability.
Critical Policy Questions & Responses
Question 1 Why does Mohammed bin Salman’s consolidation of power structurally depend on the demonisation of both Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood?
Answer: The Saudi state historically legitimatised itself through conservative religious authority, but the Arab Spring threatened the regime with popular democratic models. To survive, Mohammed bin Salman constructed a new populist, militarised nationalism that requires an existential adversary, weaponising sectarianism against Iran and criminalising the Muslim Brotherhood to crush any internal calls for political power-sharing.
Question 2 How does Turkey’s expanding regional military and diplomatic footprint challenge the strategic objectives of Saudi Arabia?
Answer: Ankara’s establishment of military bases in Qatar, Somalia, and Sudan directly encircles the Saudi peninsula, threatening Riyadh’s desire for unchallenged regional hegemony. Furthermore, Turkey’s pragmatic coordination with Iran through the 2015 Astana process directly undermines the Saudi objective of isolating Tehran, infuriating Saudi leadership.
Question 3 What are the long-term institutional consequences of the Jamal Khashoggi assassination for the Trump administration’s Middle East policy?
Answer: The murder exposed the structural risks of the United States outsourcing its regional strategy to an erratic and violently authoritarian Saudi Arabia. The ensuing bipartisan outrage in Congress threatens to dismantle the Trump administration’s unconditional backing of Riyadh, potentially forcing a reassessment of US reliance on Saudi influence for regional stabilisation.
Question 4 Why did the Saudi Arabian intelligence apparatus perceive a moderate reformer like Jamal Khashoggi as an existential threat?
Answer: Khashoggi possessed dangerous institutional memory regarding Saudi intelligence operations during the 1979 Operation Cyclone, making him a liability following the passage of the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). Additionally, his plans to establish Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) directly challenged the binary narrative of the Saudi regime, which claims to be the sole moderate force fighting extremism.
Key Actors and Systemic Dynamics
- Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman → Shapes → Saudi Arabia
- Saudi Arabia → Challenges → Iran
- Arab Spring → Weakens → Saudi Arabia
- Turkey → Competes with → Saudi Arabia
- Jamal Khashoggi → Undermines → Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
- Trump administration → Enables → Saudi Arabia
- Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) → Constrains → Saudi Arabia
- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan → Influences → Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
- United Arab Emirates → Coordinates with → Saudi Arabia
- Muslim Brotherhood → Challenges → Saudi Arabia
