ERICKSON: The Khashoggi Response Should Be Limited

Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist turned dissident. He fled Saudi Arabia in 2017 and took up residence in the United States. He began writing for The Washington Post. On Oct. 2, 2018, at the age of 59, Khashoggi went to the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul with his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz.

Cengiz waited outside the consulate while Khashoggi went in to get paperwork showing he had properly divorced his previous wife. Khashoggi never returned. The Turkish government says the Saudi government murdered him. More precisely, the Turks claim that while he was still alive, Khashoggi was dragged on top of a table, held down and dismembered. Now there is speculation that the Saudis dissolved his body in acid afterward.