the fallout from the death of Jamal
khashoggi continues to affect
international relations jamal Khashoggi
was a Saudi Arabian journalist who also
wrote for The Washington Post
his fiance has declined an invitation to
the White House she says she will only
go if the Trump administration takes
action on the case Saudi Arabia admits
Khashoggi was killed in its Instanbul
consulate the Saudis maintained that
neither King Salman nor Saudi Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman knew of the
operation to target the journalists US
officials believe the mission could not
have been carried out without the crown
prince's authority
authorization defense secretary James
Madison the US will hold people
responsible with our collective
interests in peace and unwavering
respect for human rights in mind the
murder of Jamal khashoggi in a
diplomatic facility must concern us all
greatly as US Secretary of State Pompeo
stated the United States does not
tolerate this kind of ruthless action to
silence
mr. Khashoggi a journalist through
violence joining us this morning is dr.
david swann baird professor of political
science in public administration at the
University of North Florida thank you so
much for joining us on a Sunday morning
for having me a lot to talk about this
has been a developing story for almost
several weeks at this point how does the
murder of The Washington Post columnist
impact us-saudi relations there are
several levels that it has an effect
first of all it's created a lot of
outrage for example in the Senate among
Republicans and Democrats towards Saudi
Arabia and Mohammed bin Salman who is
the crown prince and in some ways the
man in charge in Saudi Arabia right now
so this kind of outrage you know clearly
is putting people off but it's on the
back of other problems like the
situation in Yemen where there's a lot
of criticism about the Saudi role there
and the Saudis in Yemen are using
American arms when they're bombing
civilians etc so there are other things
that this is piggybacking on a lot of
moving parts here when we talk about
consequences in sanctions what are some
the US could put on Saudi Arabia well
there are some there's some blocking of
visas on the part of some high-ranking
Saudi officials that's more of a sign
than a punishment there is a lot of talk
about the arms deal that was negotiated
with the Saudis last year it's not quite
as big as it's been made to sound but
nevertheless it is important and it's
possible that some of the arms sales
could be postponed held in abeyance
embargoed etc but that's a long process
and there's a lot of politics involved
for that now we know Saudi Arabia is
going through Reformation at the hands
of the crown prince does this damage his
reputation it damages his reputation in
part but some of that when you're
talking about his reputation in the
United States or Europe is based on some
misunderstandings he is not
democratizing the country that's not the
basis of his reforms his reforms are
primarily economic he wants to diversify
the country because it relies far too
much on oil and natural gas he wants to
create much more sophisticated economy
he has to do a certain amount of opening
up in order to do that but it's not a
plan for democratizing the country and
we sort of are expecting that it is and
we will be watching that along there
thank you so much for joining us this
morning well thank you for having me