Summary

The three weeks following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi have amounted to a PR tug-of-war between the Kingdom and governments in the Western world.

Attempts by Saudi and US authorities to first ignore, then downplay, and then offer alternative explanations of the events leading up to Khashoggi’s death have so far fallen flat. This is one case where the news cycle has remained singularly focused on the scandal, helped by a stream of harrowing details coming out of Ankara.

Turkey has its own geopolitical reasons to make sure that the Saudis pay for their Khashoggi gambit, and President Erdogan has promised to release all the information he has on the assassination on Tuesday.

The ordeal has already resulted in serious costs for the Saudi regime, and there’s likely more to come.