Khashoggi

For nearly three weeks now, the whole world has been riveted on the gripping story of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen who worked as a journalist in the United States. A critic of the autocratic Saudi royal family, he obviously feared setting foot in his own country.

When he finally decided to marry his Turkish fiancee, Khashoggi went to Istanbul to get the necessary papers from the Saudi consulate in that city. He never came out. Speculations flew thick and fast that he was killed. After what seemed an eternity, Saudi Arabia finally acknowledged he died in an interrogation that turned violent. At least 18 people have been arrested.

Any fool, of course, can see that based on available evidence, Khashoggi was ordered killed and that the most likely suspect is none other than Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. There ought to be little or no debate about that. What remains to be seen is what happens now.

US President Donald Trump is under tremendous pressure to do something about it. There is so much noise in the American media and among American politicians to do something, with clearly Salman in their minds. Yet what is interesting and quite instructive about this whole thing is that it is only the United States that is making this so much noise.

Whatever sounds may be coming from, say, Britain, France, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, Germany, to name a few, are muted. Nobody is as adamant and insistent as the US. And this is because, as savage and shameless as the case may be, it is clearly an internal affair of the Saudis.

True, the world has the right to demand accountability from those who commit atrocities. But this is not a perfect world, or at least it has ceased to be. On matters pertaining to Saudi, there is a humongous elephant in the room that the whole world sees with the notable exception of the United States.

And that elephant in the room is oil, upon which much of the world depends. Saudi is the world's biggest oil producer. In the Khashoggi case, it is absolutely correct to push Saudi for some accountability. But if push comes to shove, if Saudi gets backed into a corner, it can hit back with the only viable weapon it has. Oil.

A cutback in Saudi oil production, say by 20 percent, will send much of the world, the Philippines included, into an economic and then political tailspin. There are many Filipinos in the US with families back home.

If they care for their loved ones, they should tell their politicians and the media to shut up, not because it is right to do so but because it is the more practical thing.