When Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared after entering his country’s consulate in Istanbul and Turkish sources claimed he was killed there, I couldn’t help thinking of the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya almost exactly 12 years ago — and the uncanny but incomplete resemblance between the world’s two biggest oil dictatorships.
The shooting of Politkovskaya in the elevator of her apartment building in October 2006 has haunted Russian President Vladimir Putin ever since; it was one of the turning points in his transition from useful situational ally of the West after the Sept. 11 attacks to the status of a rogue authoritarian ruler. Khashoggi’s Oct. 2 disappearance should, by rights, be a similar turning point for Crown Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia, known as MbS.Read More…