MbS is no Putin.<p>What I still can't figure out is why the hell the Saudis went to all the trouble of flying in an entire team, and then smuggling the body out, when they could have just as easily had some "rogue agent" (presumably there are multiple agents of Saudi intelligence already in Turkey) gun him down on the street. I mean, that's what Putin would've done...has done...numerous times. All I can figure is that MbS <i>honestly</i> though they'd get away with it; that they could "disappear" Khashoggi and no one would ask questions or care, much less that there would be CCTV (and possibly more) evidence showing that something was up.<p>It's also hard not to see all of this in the light of the recent "failure" of the Saudi Aramco IPO. By all accounts, that was an instance of King Salman letting MbS do his thing, only to reign him in at the last minute and "remind him who is king". One wonders of Salman let MbS try and pull off this crazy, made-for-Hollywood cloak-and-dagger stunt, knowing how it would all go down, in order to take MbS down a peg.<p>If I had to guess: the 15 "rogue" agents that carried out the Khashoggi assassination are close supporters of MbS within the government and, once this report comes out, if they don't lose their heads (literally...this is KSA after all...), at the very least the outcome will leave MbS with 15 fewer supporters within the government.