I can actually see some validity in both of these divergent viewpoints on the administration's response to the Kashoggi murder

Eli Lake at Bloomberg:

If Trump publicly acknowledges the obvious — that, as the CIA has concluded, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for Khashoggi’s murder — then he would also be signaling an openness to undermining an important ally at a time when the U.S. needs it as a consumer of weapons, a producer of oil and a bulwark against Iran. “We may never know.” “The world is a very dangerous place.”

Not so long ago, most of Congress would have basically agreed with this approach. Democrats and Republicans were pleased last year to court the Saudi crown prince on his tour of America. They praised his domestic reforms. There were rough edges, the thinking went, but he was on our side.

It’s a familiar pattern. When it comes to America’s abuser allies, the crutch of realpolitik has propped up the foreign policies of past presidents for decades. Barack Obama’s administration wouldn’t call the military’s ouster of an elected president in Egypt a “coup” and he never cut off military aid to Egypt, even after its military slaughtered dozens of protestors in Cairo in 2013. George W. Bush tolerated many deceptions, crackdowns and double-dealing from Pakistan, even though Osama bin Laden himself was living in a compound down the road from its military academy. Ronald Reagan supported apartheid South Africa because it was on America’s side against international communism.

Trump’s case is slightly different because he can’t even get the realpolitik right. It’s true that Saudi Arabia could in theory choose to purchase its arms from China or Russia, as the president warns. But given its decades-long reliance on the U.S., that transition would take years — years the Saudis do not have in their current conflict with Iran. That’s the real reason the Saudi alliance is in the U.S. national interest. The kingdom’s enemies are America’s enemies. 

With that in mind, a better approach for Trump would have been to say nothing for now and focus behind the scenes on spurring more Saudi reforms and concessions. Under this scenario, Congress could have been a good foil. Trump could have privately demanded the Saudis release journalists and human-rights activists from prison and take more seriously a peace process in Yemen. If the Saudis balked, Trump could say he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold off Congress.

Now Congress has no incentive to wait. If Trump won’t hold the crown prince accountable, it will. The most serious bill to watch in this regard is the Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act. That legislation would suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia, mandate sanctions on all those responsible for the Khashoggi murder, prohibit midair refueling for Saudi planes in the Yemen war and require the State Department to report on war crimes committed in Yemen. Earlier this year, this kind of proposal would have gotten support only from the fringes of both parties. Now it’s mainstream. 

For more than 70 years Republicans and Democrats have supported the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Even Obama sold the Saudis advanced weapons after negotiating the Iran nuclear deal. It was Obama who first authorized the midair refueling of Saudi planes for the Yemen war the Trump administration this month suspended.

A savvier president would have appreciated this history and tried to turn the Khashoggi crisis into an opportunity to change Saudi behavior. Instead, Trump has essentially dared Congress to act. In so doing, he has lost his leverage to shape the punishment for a heinous crime. Because of his abdication, America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia is in a very dangerous place.

Christian Whiton at The National Interest:

There can be no doubting that Khashoggi’s murder was a heinous crime. The Trump administration has moved decisively to hold Saudi Arabia accountable. President Trump himself addressed the matter publicly on several occasions, entertaining the possibility that Saudi Arabia’s influential crown prince was personally involved. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Saudi Arabia to confront the Saudis directly. And then the administration sanctioned seventeen Saudi nationals for their suspected involvement in the killing. 

Of course this is not enough for those who have gotten up on their high horses. They demand an end to arms sales to Saudi Arabia and a forced end to the war in Yemen, presumably on terms favorable to the Iranian proxies there whom Saudi and other Arab states are fighting, and who occasionally rain down ballistic missiles on Riyadh. It’s quite easy to be high-minded from the safety of Washington and New York. 

In the real world, the conduct of the Saudis is startling but far from unique. Among other U.S. allies, Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan, who scored diplomatic points against his regional rival over the Khashoggi killing, has dozens of journalists and political opponents rotting in his jails. Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte wholeheartedly endorses extrajudicial killing by police. And among U.S. adversaries, journalists and other opponents of governments like those in China and Iran have short life expectancies. 

The breakdown of relations that the critics of Saudi Arabia now seek, and which Trump firmly rejected with his statement of support for the alliance with Saudi Arabia, is not a novel concept. There’s even a clear example in the Middle East. In response to human-rights violations by the Shah of Iran, then-President Jimmy Carter went wobbly on his support for the Iranian monarch in 1979. The move helped usher in the Iranian Revolution and the Islamic Republic, which to this day throws political opponents in Evin Prison in Tehran and executes gays by hanging them from construction cranes. Oops. 

More to the point, Iran challenges U.S. interests around the Middle East. In effect, we are still dealing with the consequences of high-minded but dumb decisions that created today’s Iran. 

One country that stands against Iran’s ambitions is of course Saudi Arabia. Each year, it spends about $70 billion on defense, which, for example, is more than three times what Israel spends. Riyadh is also poised to buy $20 billion of American defense goods. 

Most importantly, by keeping a working relationship with Saudi Arabia, we can retain influence and urge the country down its own path of reform. While this process has recently manifested itself in headline-catching moves like finally letting women drive, the biggest opportunity is having Saudi Arabia halt its historical support for Wahhabism abroad. It’s no secret that Saudi-funded schools and mosques as far away as Indonesia have brought with them radical Islamist clerics. The Saudi government has promised Trump to change this activity, which is nearly as important to long-term U.S. security as thwarting Iran. 

For those who would say, "I thought LITD was all about absolutes, about pure right and wrong. Are you getting murky on us?" I'd respond that the key is remaining true to your immutable principles and then determining the most effective way to further them in the world as it's actually presented to you.