How Megyn Kelly & Roseanne Can Avenge Khashoggi
A firing here, an abuser there. Here a shot, there a nut, everywhere a mourner.
Our cascading cycles of tragedy and outrage are endless. Not only have they claimed lives and livelihoods, but our humanity.
As with relationships, when empathy expires by the hour and sells by the click, it’s not empathy at all. It’s empathy porn. Shallow, unsatisfying, and costly. It steals time we need to reflect, plan, and act with purpose.
So grant me this pause to appreciate something rare we’re about to squander: a second chance.
Shortly after the Saudis brutally bumped off journalist Jamal Khashoggi, we bumped him off our collective consciousness. In our burst of indignation and calls for retaliation, we missed the gift he left us.
When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in ’91, a diverse US-led coalition took him down faster than brunch at Balthazar. Then, George HW Bush had a choice — to depose Hussein or keep him. Bush, James Baker, and our allies understood our sordid history of regime change — and fragility of the region. Even a weak Hussein was needed as a secular counterbalance to fundamentalist Iran. And he was the only force keeping Iraq from disintegrating.
A decade later, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the neocons capitalized on public fear and anger after 9/11 to invade Afghanistan and Iraq — with fearsome coalitions of Australia, Hungary and four Turkish goats. Their big idea was to turn Iraq democratic, triggering a wave of Islamic democracies. Instead, they broke everything. We lost lives, money, and something no one ever mentions — our one chance to use soft power.
Think of soft power as an offer you can’t refuse, from a powerful pal. Like when the local mobster offers $20 to help him move a heavy, oversized trash bag. You don’t say no.
But we’re not the local mobster.
After 9/11, we had moral high ground and global goodwill. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to secularize, democratize, liberalize and globalize middle east dictatorships. (Or else. Shhhhh….) Most developed nations and citizens would have backed us. It was — and remains — the only real solution to endless chaos in the region. But it’s slow and frustrating, unlike the instant gratification of military intervention. Except then, if you break it, you buy it. All goodwill evaporates, taking soft power with it.
In a smaller way, we have the same opportunity now.
As with Saddam’s Iraq, we’re stuck with Saudi Arabia. They’re the last viable Muslim military power that can offset rising Iranian influence, radicalism and state-sponsored terrorism. We can’t jeopardize that. Not even for the gruesome murder of a reporter. It’s the grim reality of the region.
Of course, the Saudis have their own fundamentalism to exorcise. Megyn Kelly and Roseanne Barr can help.
We must pull an NBC and ABC on the Saudis.
Each network pounced on a brief burst of Twitter poutrage to fire two women they were already unhappy with — politically or ratings-wise. ABC even guilted Roseanne into giving up financial rights to the show she created, so her co-stars could keep working.
Similarly, we can channel the world’s scorn, our nascent soft power, and the $100B multinational arms deal to advance democracy, free press, secular education, and women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. It’s the best way to ensure Jamal Khashoggi did not die in vain.
Even if our President shared these values, I’m afraid our Khashoggi moment is fleeting. Twitter mobs may have the destructive power of cyclones, but they also have their lifespan. Everyone’s long moved on from the Saudis. They’re several new tragedies deep in their Buffer queue — mourning, outraged, or unwittingly doing the dirty work of the establishment.
RIP, Jamal. You deserved better.
- Steve Faktor
