The Experts Were Wrong About the Middle East
The killing of Jamal Khashoggi has upended Washington’s policy debates.
“I know what I’m going to do: I’m going to sanction the hell out of Saudi Arabia.”
That’s what Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said last week, to the delight of Saudi Arabia’s detractors on social media. The man who only one week prior had been jeered by millions of Democrats for supporting Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation was seemingly redeemed among President Donald Trump’s critics.
There is a rare and growing bipartisan consensus in Congress about the need to smack Saudi Arabia with human-rights sanctions, or perhaps even tougher penalties, for its role in the death of Jamal, the journalist who walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul earlier this month but never walked out. Sanctions seem inevitable.
