When he hosted last October’s glittering global investment conference in Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had the world at his fingertips. [Trump vows ‘severe punishment if U.S. determines Saudi Arabia killed Khashoggi]Some think that if the journalist ended up dead at the hands of Saudis (no body has been found, and Saudi Arabia denies any knowledge of his disappearance), it must have been a kidnapping gone wrong or a rogue operation. “I didn’t call myself a reformer,” the crown prince said in a Bloomberg News interview this month. In the hyper-nationalist environment the crown prince has nurtured, there is no benefit to sticking one’s head up, whatever the topic. “Everyone wants to prove that he or she is a patriot,” said one well-known political analyst in Saudi Arabia.

Source: Washington Post October 13, 2018 21:22 UTC