Both Republican and Democrat Congress members showed a rare example of collaboration and consensus by attending the commemoration ceremony held for slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi 100 days after his murder at the Consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul.

Reaching such a consensus at a time when there is a tense political atmosphere after Donald Trump shut down the government because of the “stubbornness” of the Democrats for the wall that is being built across the Mexican border constitutes an extremely exceptional case. Interestingly, Khashoggi plays a role that is decreasing the tension in EU politics and rescuing the national consensus culture of their politics by reminding all Americans of their common values.

We have already related that a congress member, Tom Malinowski, in his speech at the commemoration ceremony said things that meant, “Khashoggi’s murderers need to be found and tried, or the result will show that Saudi Arabia is governing the U.S.” In fact, these words are cautionary in the sense that it demands us to reconsider what we know about the nature of U.S.-Saudi Arabia relations.

As you may recall, shortly before the Khashoggi murder, Trump, during a meeting of his party members and voters said to the Saudi King, “Look, King, you wouldn’t last two weeks if it hadn’t been for our support.”

These words were stating the obvious for those who are accustomed to what is considered normal about the Saudi-U.S. relations, but at the same time, it was unkind and diplomatically scandalous words coming from a president’s mouth. Even though everybody knew it, nobody could have said such a thing in public. People are not ready to hear the whole truth, nor do they want to.

After all, what keeps international relations functioning are ceremonial compliments and huge lies repeatedly told by both parties.

Well, was what Trump had said completely true? If that is the case, those words should have been enough to devastate Saudi Arabia. However, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) blew off Trump’s comments and stated that the U.S. is not the only alternative.

One week later, the Khashoggi murder was carried out and there were even some who evaluated that this was the U.S.’s response to the unruliness of Mohammed Bin Salman. Therefore, according to this belief, the Khashoggi murder was a conspiracy against Saudi Arabia after MBS’s defiance. Saudi Arabian media immediately bought this story and wasted their time covering it. However, how could the U.S. plan such an act while all the actors, the murderers, and the organization belonged to the Saudis, and how could they send them to conspire against MBS? No matter how you push it, it is a scenario no one would believe.

Now, let’s clearly ask this question brought to our minds by Malinowski: contrary to common belief, is Saudi Arabia governing the U.S.?

It was not the U.S. but Saudi Arabia who financed counter-revolutions which would turn the Arab Spring process on its head and spent tons of money to prepare the U.S. public opinion.

It was also Saudi Arabia that took all the measures to prevent the development of democracy in the Middle East and used all means to strangle any democratic development in the region.

To tell the truth, we would all prefer to see the U.S. as the responsible party of these actions because it has always been the usual suspect. But Saudi Arabia played a major role in the civil war which broke out in Algeria in the early 90s, thus claiming the lives of over 200,000 people. The intention was to prevent the development of democracy, especially to prevent Muslim people from bringing Islam and democracy together and to prevent them from gaining control.

It was Saudi Arabia that fueled the coup in Egypt and later tried to legitimize it in all international platforms.

It was also Saudi Arabia that tried to convince members of Congress and U.S. authorities to recognize Ikhwan as a terrorist organization. It is also financing a think-tank organization and lobbying activities to prepare the reports and conferences necessary for that purpose. Interestingly enough, Saudi Arabia, which took an anti-revolutionary stance in all the Arab Spring countries, assumed a position to toppled the Assad regime in Syria and tried to influence the American decision-making organs to take action in that direction.

These efforts played an important role in this movement that was originally organized to punish Assad, but it was later transformed into a deadlock and continuous chaos.

In fact, when we collectively consider the Arab counter-revolutions with this operation in Syria, we clearly see that Turkey and the democratization and development processes it represents have suffered the greatest detriment.

Everybody sees the U.S. not Saudi Arabia as the instigator and the guardian of these orders.

However, it is Saudi Arabia which forces the U.S. to play this role with its lobbying activities within the country, as well as its diplomacy and financing.

U.S. policies have a structure that is open to the outside effects of the lobbying activities, and nowadays Saudi Arabia is channeling policies which are getting the U.S. into trouble in Yemen, Libya, Syria and Egypt; however these policies have no benefit to the U.S. in the long run, on the contrary they harm it.

In this case, we should say “too little too late!” to Malinowski. The U.S. is being governed not by the Americans but by Saudi Arabia or Israel or any other group or country that can take action early.