Mohammed bin Salman Tests Americas Ability to Forgive – The Atlantic

Read: What Jeff Bezoss reported phone hack says about billionaires

That Bezoss net worth is comparable to the GDP of a state (such as Kuwait or Morocco, two fellow Arab monarchies that Saudi Arabia has almost surely tried to bug) does not reduce the hideousness of the accusation. Yet Bezoss wealth and global influence put the alleged phone hack in a different context, as an act of espionage akin to what developed nations have done for a long time, and without apology.

The fury at the current accusation resembles in some ways the anger at the United States after allegations by Edward Snowden that it had tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkels phone. Merkel told the Americans that spying between friends just isnt on. Yet in fact, a certain amount of espionage is not only on but standard and responsible practice, and when done between friends, it does not entirely unravel the friendship. What is not standard practice is to be caught and exposedas the United States was then, and as Israel was, most dramatically, in the case of Jonathan Pollard.

The key question for MbS is whether he stands in the same category as Israel and Germany, and whether offenses taken and given will sever affections forever. It sometimes appears that MbS is doing everything he can to encourage his own vilification, in the confidence that Saudi Arabia is as close a friend to the United States as Israel and Germany are. His strategy appears to be to wait for America to forget the state-sponsored murder of the Posts Jamal Khashoggi. For him to be personally involved in the sordid targeting of a private citizen, due to his ownership of a critical newspaperand then get caughtwould be an enormous gift to MbSs enemies, and it would further test the U.S.-Saudi relationships capacity for forgiveness.

Read: The U.S. loved the Saudi crown prince. Not anymore.

The current administration in Washington dislikes Bezos and will not alter its policies over his exposure. But MbS is 34 years old, and he is seeking allies for a reign that may last the next half century, long past the second Kushner administration. And the disappearance of trust and goodwill between him and his various American counterparts is a setback from which he will not easily recover, as Israel and Germany have. (Indeed, the Bezos hack is both a symptom and a cause of that disappearance of trust: Many news sources have reported the hack as fact, even though the best technical analysis of the device has failed, as of this writing, to show more than circumstantial evidence that MbS infected his phone.)

MbS should be asking what marks an ally as one capable of receiving the benefit of the doubt and, finally, pardon. What Israel and Germany share with the United States is a commitment (sometimes honored in the breach) to basic liberal democratic values, rule of law, and the unalienable rights of their citizens. This commitment is a salve that Saudi Arabia will have great difficulty whipping up, given that democracy and liberalism are utterly foreign to it. Saudi Arabia has liberalized dramatically since MbSs de facto rule began three years ago, but it is still an absolute monarchy and will probably remain one. Those who wish it would democratize will find that they have to decide between political and social liberalization, at least in the short term, because MbS has promoted the latter at the expense of the former.

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Mohammed bin Salman Tests Americas Ability to Forgive - The Atlantic