The editor of 'The Washington Post' accuses Biden of letting the murder of journalist Khashoggi go unpunished

A vigil in Washington in memory of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, on October 2, 2019, one year after his death.SARAH SILBIGER / Reuters

The Middle East has soon brought Joe Biden face to face with the dilemmas of the geopolitical chessboard and the fragility of electoral promises.

The new president of the United States, who during the campaign promised a strong hand against Saudi Arabia for the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, has avoided direct sanctions against Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salmán, who, according to US intelligence services, ordered the execution of

columnist

.

The editor of this newspaper, Fred Ryan, denounces in a harsh article published this Monday that Biden exempts Salmán of responsibilities, granting him "a pass for a free murder", in exchange for saving cooperation with Riyadh in the troubled region.

"It appears that under the Biden Administration, despots who offer momentary strategic value to the United States can get 'a free assassination pass," Ryan notes in the article, three days after the White House released the report that US intelligence elaborated on the death of Khashoggi, in which it concluded that the crown prince gave the green light to the operation, which took place in Turkey.

A death squad, according to the investigation, traveled to Istanbul and tricked the journalist into going to the Saudi consulate to carry out a procedure.

Once inside, he was quartered.

The report's findings were officially shared, black-on-white, on Friday, but they were long overdue, to the point where candidate Biden had raised the issue during the campaign.

The Democrat, as the

editor reminds him

in his article, had promised "to make them pay the price and to make them, in effect, the outcasts that they are."

"Khashoggi has been killed and dismembered, I believe, by order of the crown prince."

His statements, in short, pointed to a change of course with respect to Republican Donald Trump, who avoided the publication of the report and also refused to hold Riyadh accountable.

However, once the document was released on Friday, the Administration limited itself to announcing the imposition of visa restrictions on 76 Saudis who "are believed to have been implicated in threats to dissidents abroad," according to a statement from the Department of Condition.

Not a word about Salman.

Biden, according to Administration sources cited that day by

, fears that direct punishment of the prince would ruin cooperation with Riyadh in the fight against terrorism and in tension with Iran.

"The relationship with Saudi Arabia is greater than any individual," said, for his part, the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken.

For Fred Ryan, saying that the Middle East is a complicated place is an understatement.

The editor regrets that US presidents have made the wrong decisions with the short term in mind and that this is again the case with the new White House tenant.

Ryan writes that American voters "took Biden's word that he would reestablish America as a defender of human rights and that he would not allow exceptions based on personal relationships or strategic needs of the day."

For the editor of

, the Democratic president is facing a litmus test on his electoral promises and "is about to fail it."

Jamal Khashoggi lived in the United States and was a regular contributor to the

.

He was about to turn 60 when he was assassinated on October 2, 2018. A great critic of the Riyadh regime, the journalist went to the Istanbul diplomatic legation to carry out some procedures related to his future marriage to a Turkish woman and left from there to pieces.

Saudi justice sentenced five men to death for the murder (although the sentences were commuted last September to 20 years in prison) and three others have received prison terms.

The court, instead, exonerated Saud al Qahtani, a controversial adviser to Bin Salmán, who was considered the contact between him and the executing command.

The conflict embarrasses a Biden who last week approved a bombing in Syria against structures of Iranian-backed militia groups, in retaliation for a previous attack on Americans and allies in Iraq.

Several of the Democrats themselves on Capitol Hill criticized him for carrying it out without the blessing of Congress.

For the presidents of the United States, the Middle East is a constant test.

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