Realpolitik in the 21st Century: The Ethical Enigma over Jamal Khashoggi

The human propensity to sacrifice morals and ethics in the face of material gains has always been a struggle, and, unfortunately, still rings true in the current international economic political arena.  The cynical reality is that humans are fallible creatures, and oftentimes, policies, which are formed by said, imperfect individuals, can reflect these unattractive truths.   

The historical prevalence of this pessimistic worldview has led to the creation of the infamous term, realpolitik.  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines this term as “politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives”.  Coined over 150 years ago by the German political radical, August Ludwig von Rochau, this idea emerged in the aftermath of the European revolutions of 1848 and was used to support arguments for possible German unification.  While it is comforting to think that ethics and sound morals will always triumph in the face of self-interest and greed, the fact of the matter is that history has consistently proven otherwise, as evidenced by the recent Saudi Arabia controversy in early October of this year, and successive responses, or lack thereof, from the world’s leaders. 

The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey that took place a few weeks ago stunned the world, and dramatically brought this innate conflict between morality and economic considerations to the forefront of public debate once again. However, this issue of realpolitik in 21st economic politics, as highlighted by this event, did not emerge overnight.  The Middle East, in particular, has historically been the site of many ethical enigmas for policy makers in the Western hemisphere for decades.   

An important and high-profile conflict relevant in better understanding the Khashoggi debacle is the Iran-Contras scandal in the mid-1980s.  It is a classic story illustrating the age-old tradeoff of “ends justifying the means”, with the United States temporarily abandoning its integrity to achieve longer-term goals.  The controversy arose in the context of the Reagan administration’s anti-Communist efforts to keep these political ideals out of the Middle East.  The climax of this debacle resulted in the United States secretly engaging in arms trading with Iran in exchange for seven hostages in Lebanon.  The funds secured from these morally questionable trades were used to support the “Contras”, guerrilla forces in Nicaragua fighting the rampant Communist government that ruled the country.  Both the arms trading with Iran, and subsequent aid to these “freedom fighters” were illegal, not to mention that the United States was doing business with a country involved in hostage-taking of American citizens.  Thus, this entire conflict highlights the notion of sacrificing certain ethical considerations in order to achieve other desirable objectives.   

Thus, maintaining economic relations with morally-questionable countries has been a thorn in the United States’ side for many decades.  The world witnessed this again when, following the news of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder within the Saudi consulate in Turkey, the Trump administration was deafeningly quiet on strongly condemning these obviously immoral atrocities.  For more than two weeks, Saudi Arabia shiftily changed its story on the events that took place on October 2nd, and yet the administration chose to overlook the increasingly obvious evidence linking Saudi Arabia to the murder, seemingly to protect its economic interests with the nation.  President Trump has not been coy about protecting the United States’ significant economic interests within the country.  Back in 2017, Trump secured a massive $110 billion-dollar arms deal with the Middle Eastern powerhouse.  Thus, the US has significant economic ties to Saudi Arabia, and it is clear that this is a roadblock for the administration in responding in a strongly moral way.   

This dilemma has led to many hard questions for world leaders to face.  Where do we draw the line now to break economic ties?  How many “Jamal Khashoggi’s” have to die before countries such as the United States break trade deals and unequivocally condemn these moral-less actions?  The idea that these are the questions the world is facing, says a lot about the state of the international community today, and proof of realpolitik’s tight grip on international trade and countries’ economic agendas.  Morality is not black and white and can be made even more complicated when considered through the prism of international trade and economic alliances.  However, what happened on that fateful autumn day is very hard to overlook, and leaders such as the United States should seriously reevaluate their moral compasses if history is to look kindly upon them.