The disappearance of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has put pressure on the President, who has long had personal business ties with the Saudis and made the oil-rich kingdom central to his foreign policy.
In words that now haunt his own case, the journalist Jamal Khashoggi said, in August, that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has “no tolerance or willingness to accommodate critics.”
Politics and patriotic disappointment aside, the first game of the World Cup, between Russia and Saudi Arabia, was enjoyable—if only because it felt like the beginning of fun, and of the summer.