Welcome to the commentary magazine podcast today is Thursday, October 18, 28.

I am John Pudhortz the editor of commentary magazine with me as always associate editor

Noah Rossman. Hello Noah. Hi John. A. Greenwald our senior editor. Hi Abe. Hi John and

senior writer Sorobamari. Hello Sorob. So the controversy and geopolitical crisis surrounding

the apparent murder of Jamal Kashoggi the Saudi fixer spokesman the newspaper editor

Emma Gray Washington Post freelance columnist somehow lured into the Saudi consulate and

this done bull and then apparently murdered their continues into it second week and I think

what's what's interesting now we just heard that this gigantic Saudi investment conference

that was going to happen I guess next week from which everyone has been pulling out all

the banks all the major figures in banking that treasury secretary Mnuchin has now announced

he will no longer attend this is a real blow to the Saudi government which I think was

hoping to raise literally tens of billions of dollars by making the case that Saudi

Arabia was now open for business in a way that it never had been that it was not going

to be the same kind of kleptocratic state that it's always been demanding slices of

the pie to do business in Saudi Arabia that it was going to be a much more free market

approach so this is now basically come totally a cropper in the wake of the Kashoggi event

so that's the first mark of a genuine slam to Saudi self image and the Saudi effort to

reposition itself as a modernized country and not simply you know a backward fundamental

history gene you know sitting on a sitting atop a an ocean of oil more importantly though

is this general sense that our entire foreign policy posture towards Saudi Arabia needs

to undergo a radical re examination and change of circumstance pretty much solely as the

result of this one admittedly horrific and despicable event and I guess the question that

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