The United States’ perennially controversial relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been rocked over the past few weeks by the explosive allegation that the Saudi regime orchestrated the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

According to Turkish government sources, on Oct 2, Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government, was murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a hit squad that the Saudi regime had dispatched prior to his scheduled meeting at the facility.

Although this news has unleashed an international media frenzy and sparked a bipartisan outcry in Congress, the Trump administration’s reaction has been conspicuously low-key.

… Evan Resnick is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the United States Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the author of the book Allies of Convenience: A Theory of Bargaining in US Foreign Policy, which is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. An abridged version of this commentary appeared in RSIS Commentary.