Blood and oil.

Byline: Mahir Ali

THERE was nothing new in the US intelligence assessment about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi released last week. Anyone with even a few active grey cells had realised the identity of the mastermind behind the plot soon after the US-based Saudi journalist failed to emerge from a routine appointment at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul.

The gory details of his final minutes and the atrocious aftermath emerged soon afterwards, and even the fairly obvious conclusion reached by American intelligence agencies was reported soon afterwards. It wasn't officially acknowledged by the Trump administration, however. In his characteristically clumsy way, Donald Trump sought to aid the cover-up as he boasted to journalist Bob Woodward, while referring to the Saudi crown prince.

Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was excluded from sanctions imposed by the US on a handful of his minions, which practically entail little more than a denial of visas should they wish to travel to America. It's tantamount to little more than a mild rap on the knuckles.

The crown prince remains unscathed, as does the relationship established in 1945 by Ibn Saud and Franklin Roosevelt. Saudi Arabia remains too important an ally for the US to risk a rupture with, notwithstanding the deadly predilections of its crown prince.

Uncle Sam is only mildly miffed with the Saudis.

This is hardly a singular instance, though, of realpolitik getting in the way of supposed US ideals. For successive American administrations, concerns about human rights have seldom been much more than a pretence. They are routinely heightened in the case of regimes that refuse to kowtow to Washington, and glossed over in innumerable other instances. Venezuela is red-flagged, but not Brazil. The Saudi, Emirati, Israeli and Egyptian regimes get more or less a free pass, but not Syria.

But then, it has always been thus. And that's no surprise, given the long trajectory of US human rights violations in both the domestic and international spheres. It could be argued that the Trump administration was the personification of such abuses, but it stretches back decades, if not centuries. The main difference in recent years was that Trump saw little reason to disguise his designs.

Hence the argument that the Biden administration should revert to some blessed ideal is sanctimonious nonsense. When Mike Pompeo delivered a barrage against China's appalling treatment of the Uighurs, but said nothing about the Rohingya...