A U.S.-Imposed Punishment for Jamal Khashoggi’s Death

| Walter Pincus
Walter Pincus
Contributing Sr. National Security Columnist, The Cipher Brief

OPINION — While President Trump’s claimed $110 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia remains “fake,” and shouldn’t be even considered “news,” there are deliveries of past sales in the pipeline to the Saudis that should be held up in response to the murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi.

Start with halting delivery of additional F-15SA Strike Eagle fighter-bombers to the Royal Saudi Air Force, purchased under a $29 billion-dollar-sale concluded in December 2010, during the Obama administration. The Saudis bought 84 of what was, at the time, the most advanced F-15 built, with deliveries beginning in December 2016.

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The Author is Walter Pincus

Walter Pincus is a contributing senior national security columnist for The Cipher Brief. He spent forty years at The Washington Post, writing on topics from nuclear weapons to politics.  In 2002, he and a team of Post reporters won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. He also won an Emmy in 1981 and the 2010 Arthur Ross Award from the American Academy for Diplomacy.

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