 If we see the other part of the US foreign policy, assassination, use of drones to quote unquote take out people, baseball cards, who are going to be taken out every Tuesday. This is a part of the US policy today. And they have also supported Israel and its assassinations in different parts of the West Asia. So they have never been particular about this issues as the claim for others. You know, Trump has also brought in other issues like political issues in terms of Middle Eastern politics. Number one, you know, the statement on Saudi Arabia opens with a big artillery barrage on Iran. Yes, of course. Now this is again a message to the Saudis that look, you know, Khashoggi is not the issue here. The issue is, you know, I have countered on you, again, first person singular, I have countered on you when I embarked on this path because you guys came and told me and put me onto this and I'm now in a project halfway through. Now you better stick to it and all the support that you promised, you better deliver. And then he mentions also in the statement Israel. What does Israel got to do with Khashoggi? Now he has said this because my son-in-law has up his sleeves a certain package for the Middle East for solving the Palestinian problem. And you told me that you will sell it by endorsing it in some way or the other when it at the eleventh hour to make it possible. Israel comes in two, three ways. Number one, this present arrangement in Saudi Arabia has worked brilliantly for Israelis because a subterranean relationship, subsoil relationship, this Saudi regime has had shown the courage, if you look at it from the Israeli-American point of view, courage to bring it to the surface and openly acknowledge it. It is now therefore got a wider acceptability in the Arab-Muslim world because when the Saudis say it, it's difficult to contradict it publicly. So the Saudi support is very important for Israel and that is important for the United States also. Secondly, the Saudis had promised that they will work with the Americans to impose, I'm using the word carefully, impose a solution on Palestinian issue. On this estimation, that this is the core issue in the Middle East, without this a kind of a quantum jump in terms of a new Middle East will not be possible. So Kushner has been working on this, Jared Kushner trumps son-in-law and Israelis are giving all the inputs into this. So Saudis must continue on this track, that is the second part of it. And the third one is a kind of a regional alliance where Israel will get strategic depth. This is the talk about the Arab-NATO plus Israel- Arab-NATO, yes. And Iran is a bogie. So the Iran bogie and any other aspect can also come into this. But essentially to ensure that Israel's regional isolation is mitigated and it gets embedded in an alliance system which cuts across religions, which cuts across the Arab world. And that is a permanent solution for a greater Israel. You know, naturally it will lead to greater Israel because after that the Israelis couldn't care less about these pockets inside the country Gaza and West Bank and all that. So in terms of the fulfillment of the Israeli agenda, Bolaan Heights are all as part of Israel. So you know, this is the scenario and then you see he has shown another big concession, Trump has shown another big concession by describing the MN situation as something which is unavoidable because of Iran. He says Iran must withdraw its presence and Iran doesn't have a presence to withdraw. So he is refused to criticize Saudi Arabians and all this threat of pressure on Saudi Arabia is lifted. He finds nothing wrong with what the Saudis have done there. So you know, this looks, Prabir, prima facie as something of a very generous attitude like a blank check for the Saudi Arabians. But the cutting edge is that this wish list is so very demanding that one can tell right at the beginning that the Saudis are not going to be able to carry this forward very long. So here's a question. This is a, as you said, a very honorous wish list. Saudis may not have the capacity to carry it. The second is why the Saudi establishment and the, shall we say, the Congress of Princes so should not instead jettison the Crown Prince. See I see that unlikely, now we are moving away from Trump to the alignments there. I see that unlikely because this Muslim Brotherhood factor is definitely at the root of the murder of Khashoggi. Trump also mentions it. Yes, he is also aligned to Muslim Brotherhood. Yes. Turkey, Erdogan is Muslim Brotherhood. Yes. Hamasar Muslim Brotherhood. Yes. So that correlation is there. You know the fact is it has got acceptability in the Saudi ruling circles that is in terms of the family, royal family. This interpretation of the Muslim Brotherhood as an existential threat to the regime. After all, Muslim Brotherhood seeks democratization because it is only through democratization that Muslim Brotherhood can make a headway and can capture power in these countries like it happened in Egypt. So these kings and all these have to go away, you know. So this is an existential thing for the ruling party. Then secondly what I notice is this that there is really no stomach for a removal of the regime or a change of regime. Resume change is a different connotation, changing the regime under pressure like this from the outside because this can have a domino effect in the region. Fragile internally as well. Yeah, regionally also. Because a number of these guys have their own problems. You know, if you take the king of Jordan, he is also sitting on a volcano, you know. So you see there is a democratic stir going on in Kuwait, which they are barely able to control. Earlier Bahrain. Big upheaval in Bahrain. You know all this shows that a change in Saudi Arabia can bring about pressures on the other regimes. So on this question of changing the setup in Saudi Arabia, I think there is no support in the region. So projecting this Khashoggi thing as an existential issue, squashing the domestic dissent there by, dissipating the domestic dissent there by. And then a third curious factor, which you know, we again paint the Saudi situation in black and white terms, but there are subtle shapes. Now you know, the point is, this young man, the crown prince, has a very strong constituency in the Saudi society supporting him, the youth. Because you know, day to day, until Khashoggi came, we were not noticing a number of moves he has made in terms of relaxing restrictions on the society. And the kind of modernization vision that he has projected is called the imagination of the youngsters, because this is what they would also want their country to be. You know, Arabs remember, they are very chatty on the internet. You know, probably other than the Chinese, I don't think any society, you know, like the Arab society. It takes to the internet, you know, and they cleanly follow and make up for the deficiencies in their own media and all otherwise, and you know, they have very, very, very fairly good knowledge of where they want to be and what they are not and so on. So a strong measure of support from the Saudi society for him. And I think even the factions which are known to be outside the corridors of power today within the royal family, even they grudgingly admit that the crown prince is rather popular as a figure in the Saudi society. This really doesn't matter perhaps for an oligarchy, but it's a fact of life. So you see, all this factor also comes in favor of that and we really don't want to talk about it much because these days, we won't only to condemn them for the Kashukji murder, but ultimately the crown prince is also a politician and from a politician's point of view, the mass support is a factor. So then there are a number of other things like he's controlling the levers of power and power flows through the barrel of the gun, you know, in such situations. He has controlled the entire police and military apparatus inside the inside South Arabia. Apart from that, the only other issue is it also seems to have strengthened Turkey, we should vis-à-vis the Saudis in the region and do you see that, that will continue. We also see that there is no reapprochement which appeared might happen between Saudis sort of also offering shall we say various monetary considerations to Turkey. All that see doesn't seem to have happened and the gun is still on a very shall we say strong note on bringing to book Khashoggi's murderer who he thinks the main culprit is the prince and he's made that pretty clear. So do you see Turkey emerging as a bigger player in this and not sort of towing either the American line and also being able to play an independent role as you talked about the Muslim brotherhood as the key figure of Muslim brotherhood today in the region? Undoubtedly so, you know the Turks are actually it's very ambitious country and they have sets their sights very high as a regional power and they are moving very systematically and it's an ideology based regime and the Saudi situation how it develops is going to affect their own forward march. So you see Turkey is playing for very high stakes. I think a number of people calculated that you know taken this old habit of the Saudis throwing money at any problem and solving the problem they would throw some green money at you know the Turks and the Turkish economy can afford to have money but Qatar is doing that for Turkey. So Erdogan is today liberated from financial worries. Turkey is the second largest military power in terms of forces, soldiers in the NATO. And you know the curious thing which has happened is that the Khashoggi affair has brought about a certain proximity between Turkey and the US intelligence which wasn't there before. This is very interesting because for the US intelligence also Muslim brotherhood has been a very key interlocutor for a long time. Strategic asset for a long time. Yes, yes. I've even got in my computer a photograph of a Muslim brotherhood delegation. Pension hour in 1956. No, in 2017. 2017. A Muslim brotherhood delegation coming out of the US Congress which went there for lobbying and you know how the American system works. Now this delegation has definitely had the support of the intelligence establishment and this lobbying among the US congressmen was in fact to prepare for transitions involving the Muslim brotherhood which are in the pipeline. So you can imagine that you see there has always been a constituency, I don't want to mention the names here of the CIA people but there are people, there is a strong constituency because a number of them are writers also today after leaving 30, 35 years in the CIA. You know who believe that American security interests demand the democratization of the Middle East. But democratization of the Middle East in a way that it brings to power forces which are going to have a congruence of interest with the United States and which will therefore work with the United States and that is the only enduring solution to the American predicament in the Middle East politics. You know that is an interesting point that you are making because this was the congruence why Muslim brotherhood was preferred over what would be called secular nationalist Arab figures like Nasir, like Assad and they were nationalist and were quite willing to have certain relations with the United States but the United States concretely chose these figures including in Iran because nationalism means also control over resources and therefore antithetical to USA. Correct. You see Imam Khomeini had a word for this group of people, used to call it American Islam you know, American branch of Islam. You know Muslim brotherhood and Iran have a troubled relationship but of course for transformation of the region what Muslim brotherhood can bring about a transformation of the region, Iranians are not going to block it because Iran also wants you know a kind of a system towards an Islamic regime and also want the monarchies to go. Yes, monarchies to go. So you see but coming back to this point, the Turkish point therefore what I see in this period since October 2 is a proximity developing between the US intelligence, the CIA and Turkey because a number of these leaks have come and they are being picked up and you know they are being burnished and refloated from the United States in the American media so there is a collaborative project going on you know and Trump knows it, definitely Trump knows it and the way he despised the CIA director to go and look into the you know into the Turkish archives to see how much they know that was what was expected when the director came to Turkey for consultations was this that Trump knows that Turkey can spoil it. So what Trump has done is again that part we has not come out very openly here. Let us send a note to the Justice Department and the FBI that Erdogan's number one enemy, this Islamist preacher by name Fethullah Gulen who is sitting in Pennsylvania in a big ranch you know and enjoying the support and his green card was actually recommended by top CIA officials when he fled Turkey. Now Erdogan has got all the dopes on him, he is sitting there that he could be that Turkey's request for repatriation could be partly met by Americans kicking him out of America you know American soil from where so that you know it does not become an issue between Erdogan and Turkey. Erdogan in the United States. Trump's motivation here is very clear because Trump immediately came under attack from American press and American writers who have voiced opinions on behalf of the CIA. This is in fact to bring it out that the CIA is behind Gulen. This is in a way to blackmail and to complicate the CIA's spring with Erdogan. You know this is all very getting very murky now you know and Erdogan knows very well that this is what and then another place where he has done is that is I am going to get into a little detail because it's important here there's a bank by name Hulk Bank. Now that bank was used by Turkey to circumvent the American sanctions. Oh they run oil in fact we also routed our paper through the Hulk Bank. Now that bank's director or assistant director is sitting in person in America, American Scott hold of him and he is undergoing trial in a Manhattan federal court. Now the point is this man's testimony and others have shown that this was done on behalf of people who were either close associates of Erdogan or even family members and even a mention a person like his son-in-law who is now the finance minister. So this can lead to sanctions against Turkey and it can lead very damaging for Erdogan. So he is again a signal from there, a trumpet signal from there that he maybe we can do something about this. He also holds up cards. So you know it is clearly to show that if Erdogan cooperates Erdogan can benefit out of it. Just think hard. Thank you very much Ambassador Bhadrakumar for being with us giving us a detailed exposition of all the things at play because it is a complex chess mode which is unfolding in front of us. Thank you very much. This is all the time we have for NewsClick today. We will continue to discuss West Asia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other issues in the region with Ambassador Bhadrakumar and on other programs.