Isolating Saudi Arabia Will Be Harder Than It Looks - Bloomberg

Isolating Saudi Arabia Will Be Harder Than It Looks - Bloomberg:

If, as many believe, dissident Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudis’ Istanbul consulate on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, it would be an act not just of brutality but of stunning arrogance. The backlash to the murder has been (relatively) swift and (somewhat) severe. Most notably, the Saudi government’s flagship investor event -- “Davos in the Desert,” as we’re apparently supposed to call it -- seems under threat after a series of high-profile withdrawals. Saudi arrogance has, one might suppose, received its comeuppance.

I wouldn’t be so sure. Yes, nobody might want to take the risk, right now, of hanging out with the bad guy of the moment. But the larger idea behind the informal boycott of Davos in the Desert is what -- that we are going to somehow isolate Saudi Arabia from the global economy? That’s not going to work as long as the country remains is the world’s largest oil exporter.

Or is the idea to scale back other kinds of economic engagement with the kingdom, in particular financial links? Davos in the Desert is an investor conference, after all, and most attention has been focused on whether the heads of the big investment banks would attend.