[NeverFade]

Yes, MBS is terrible, and his regime is autocratic.

Also, intelligent mature people make policy based on real-politik and the aggregate sum of its consequences. They don't just respond to whatever moral sentiments they experience in the moment.

The decision to push the Saudis away is destabilizing the whole region and will allow a violent, aggressive, revolutionary Iran to start and escalate extremely bloody conflicts throughout the region.

While it's a shame that one journalist was killed, was alienating the Saudis really worth the many thousands of lives lost as a result?

[JumpCrisscross]

> intelligent mature people make policy based on real-politik

The Khashoggi affair was stupid and incompetent enough to call into question Riyadh’s qualifications as our chief regional ally.

Their subsequent de facto defeat in Yemen underscores that their value is in oil first and maybe geography second.