Trump lavishes royal Arab billionaires with praise


May 23, 2017
Sarah Benton


President Trump bows to receive his bling – the Order of Abdulaziz al-Saud medal – from King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia, the land of the 9/11 bombers. Saudi Royal Court in Riyadh on Saturday. Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

What kind of deal is Trump making with Saudi Arabia?

By Marc Lynch, Washington Post
May 22, 2017

The optics of Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where he addressed dozens of leaders from Arab and Muslim majority countries, suggested a dramatic departure for American Middle East policy. The reality is far more prosaic. Trump outlined a highly conventional U.S. Middle East policy focused on cooperation with traditional regional allies against Iran and terrorism. Even Trump’s Islam speech, which many feared would be a declaration of civilizational war, was dominated by conventional American language.

Trump’s strategic concept of renewed partnership with traditional autocratic allies in the service of confrontation with Iran and counterterrorism is a deeply familiar one. His shift from radical campaign rhetoric to a traditional set of policies could be viewed through the lens of the international relations theoretical debates about structure and agency. Trump, like presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama before him, was forced back to the center by the structural logic of America’s role in Middle Eastern politics.

At this early stage, however, it may be more useful to view Trump’s Saudi visit through the lens of intra-alliance bargaining games. Obama sought to push regional allies toward his view of American interests and values, through a combination of pressure, inducements such as arms sales, and rhetorical persuasion. Trump has instead preemptively made many more concessions to the preferences of Arab regimes in the hopes that they will respond with financial and political support.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated bluntly in his joint news conference with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir that the newly signed Strategic Vision Document demonstrated the “trust between our two nations that we are pursuing the same objectives.” This declaration of common objectives among long-standing allies is, of course, diplomatic boilerplate. But it is nonetheless significant because the years following 2011 were dominated by highly public intra-alliance bargaining politics.

After 2011, Arab regimes leveraged their highly public displeasure with Obama’s embrace of the Arab uprisings, refusal to intervene directly in Syria, pursuit of diplomacy with Iran and professed fears of abandonment into unprecedented levels of arms sales, the muting of criticism of their human rights abuses and acquiescence to their interventions in Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen. Obama, for his part, secured Arab acceptance of the Iran nuclear deal and put together a large regional coalition in support of the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Obama’s tough bargaining style within the alliance thus produced a fairly even balance sheet, even if it did not produce ostentatious displays of friendship.

Trump, despite campaigning with harsh denunciations of Saudi Arabia and a promise of tough international bargaining, has opted instead for an alliance strategy of concessions and warm embrace. Trump is taking advantage of the fresh start offered to any new president. Instead of making hard asks of his alliance partners at the outset of the relationship, however, he has adopted their worldview, language, and preferences. Will Trump’s strategy of preemptive concessions and overt public embrace of the Arab regimes produce better results than did Obama’s hard bargaining and public challenges?

It is not yet obvious the extent to which Trump has actually aligned with the key strategic priorities of his Arab partners. While the Trump administration is clearly more confrontational toward Iran than Obama, it also seems inclined toward quietly maintaining the terms of the nuclear agreement. Despite the close relations between Iran and the Iraqi government, Trump has sustained close military cooperation with the Iraqi security forces, and often tacit cooperation with the Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces, in the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq. The visit of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, did not produce a change in the American alignment with the Syrian Democratic Forces against the Islamic State in Syria. Recent airstrikes against Syrian regime forces may have the United States sliding down the slope toward the greater involvement in Syria’s endless war which Arab regimes have always wanted, but nothing said publicly in Saudi Arabia suggested an overt embrace of such escalation.

What’s more, Trump’s embrace of the Gulf leadership’s worldview does not allow these regimes to overcome their very real domestic problems, and will likely make them worse. Trump enthusiastically participated in a symbolic funeral for the Arab uprisings by embracing repressive leaders such as Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi and Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. No activists, civil society leaders or intellectuals were present, and Trump explicitly disavowed any pressure to alleviate their suffering at the hands of abusive regimes. Arab regimes will have ample opportunity to continue their long practice of manipulating the discourse of terrorism to justify the wide-scale repression of civil society, independent media, and political dissent.

Trump’s transactional approach succeeded in extracting commitments of more than $400 billion in arms sales and infrastructure investments. But these commitments may prove difficult to meet for regimes already entering into unusual austerity measures in response to persistently low oil prices. Trump’s public indifference will make it easier for the regimes to sustain their crackdown on civil society and political dissent, but such repression will exacerbate the governance failures and political grievances which lay the ground for another round of instability. By almost every indicator — economic, political, security or social — the Arab regimes upon which Trump is doubling down are more unstable now than they appeared to be in the years leading up to the 2011 uprisings.

All this means that despite his strategy of embracing Arab partners at the outset of his term, Trump will almost certainly soon experience tensions. By moving quickly toward accepting the preferences of the Arab regimes while making few demands, Trump is beginning the alliance bargaining game with warm feelings among his regime partners but a relatively weak internal bargaining position. It remains to be seen whether this approach will produce greater cooperation or relationships which survive the inevitable turbulence.

Marc Lynch is a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, where he is the director of the Project on Middle East Political Science.


Donald Trump’s Saudi Arabia speech: eight key points

By Telegraph Reporters, The Telegraph
May 21, 2017

US president Donald Trump delivered the first speech of his first foreign trip in Riyadh on Sunday, in which he called on Middle Eastern leaders to combat a “crisis of Islamic extremism”.

Mr Trump’s 36-minute address was the centre-piece of a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia, his first stop overseas as president.

During a meeting of more than 50 Arab and Muslim leaders, he sought to chart a new course for America’s role in the region, one aimed squarely on rooting out terrorism, with less focus on promoting human rights and democratic reforms.

These are eight key points from the address:

Society

“We are not here to lecture – we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership – based on shared interests and values – to pursue a better future for us all.”

Co-operation

“Today, we begin a new chapter that will bring lasting benefits to our citizens.”


US President Donald Trump, accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump (left), and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. Photo by Bandar Al-Jaloud /AFP/Getty Images

Terrorism

“This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations.

“This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life, and decent people of all religions who seek to protect it. This is a battle between good and evil.”

Iran

“For decades, Iran has fuelled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror. It is a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room.”

“Until the Iranian regime is willing to be a partner for peace, all nations of conscience must work together to isolate Iran, deny it funding for terrorism, and pray for the day when the Iranian people have the just and righteous government they deserve.”

Human rights

“Our partnerships will advance security through stability, not through radical disruption. We will make decisions based on real-world outcomes – not inflexible ideology. We will be guided by the lessons of experience, not the confines of rigid thinking. And, wherever possible, we will seek gradual reforms – not sudden intervention.”


Donald Trump delivers his speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit, in the presence of his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia May 21, 2017. Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Syria

“Responsible nations must work together to end the humanitarian crisis in Syria, eradicate ISIS, and restore stability to the region.”

Trump’s priorities

“We signed historic agreements with the Kingdom that will invest almost $400 billion in our two countries and create many thousands of jobs in America and Saudi Arabia.”

“It should increasingly become one of the great global centers of commerce and opportunity. This region should not be a place from which refugees flee, but to which newcomers flock.”

US involvement in region

“We can only overcome this evil if the forces of good are united and strong – and if everyone in this room does their fair share and fulfills their part of the burden.”

“The nations of the Middle East cannot wait for American power to crush this enemy for them. The nations of the Middle East will have to decide what kind of future they want for themselves, for their countries, and for their children.”



Mr and Mrs Trump, President and First Lady, step off Air Force One upon arrival in Riyadh on May 20, 2017. Photo by Bandar Al-Jaloud/AFP

Analysis: After Riyadh Speech, Trump Comes to Israel as a Messianic Opportunist

Unlike Obama’s Cairo address, Trump dispensed with preaching freedom and equality and gave the Palestinians only a perfunctory nod

By Chemi Shalev, Haaretz premium
May 21, 2017

Donald Trump changed America’s standing in the Middle East on Sunday, perhaps historically. He reversed eight years of foreign policy carried out by his predecessor, Barack Obama. He positioned himself as champion of Saudi Arabia and Sunni Islam and as chief adversary of Iran and the Shia. He embraced the kingdoms, sheikdoms, dictatorships, military regimes and popular democratic republics of political Islam and absolved them of the human rights and democratic mumbo-jumbo that Obama used to torment them with. Like Benjamin Netanyahu before him, Trump is now Mr. Terror, a leader for whom all other considerations are subordinate to the fight against it.

The contrast between Trump’s well-structured speech, notwithstanding the unusual lethargy with which he read it out from the teleprompter, and the statements that he has made in the past, was flabbergasting, to say the least. He once accused Islam of hating America and the Saudis of perpetrating 9/11, and he advocated a total ban on Muslim entry to the United States. Suddenly he was singing the praises of those he had just described as evil-doers, to the point where one could have imagined him bursting out in kumbaya. He showed the world that consistency is a worthless notion and words have no meaning at all. His holy trinity is opportunism, pragmatism and copious amounts of cynicism.

His speech was, in many ways, the complete opposite of the one Barack Obama made in Cairo in June 2009. Unlike Obama, Trump did not express sympathy for Muslim grievances or regret of past injustices perpetrated by the West, nor did he declare Islam “a part of America,” as Obama did. He didn’t mention the Islamic roots he doesn’t have, of course, but also didn’t dwell on the religion’s contributions to civilization. He did not praise America’s commitment to freedom or democracy and therefore did not admonish his listeners to improve the lot of women, minorities or those of other religions over whom they rule. Bizarrely, he praised Saudi Arabia’s advancement of women, even though they still can’t drive and are routinely arrested if caught not wearing traditional Muslim garb.

Trump certainly did not devote a full 20 percent of his speech to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as Obama did. He made do with a short mention of his hope to achieve peace between the two sides, and even omitted Israel’s name from the countries that suffered from terrorism. If it was Obama, as the cliché goes, Israeli ministers would be out in full force to condemn Trump as a coward and Israel-hater.

Trump coined his approach as Principled Realism. America would protect its citizens and would forge partnerships with countries it once disdained. Nonetheless, alongside his pragmatic approach, there was a peculiar streak of religious fervour if not outright messianism in Trump’s address, as there’s been throughout his foreign tour.  He’s made a point of visiting the holy places of the three monotheistic religions. He mentioned God nine times in his speech, called on everyone to pray and spoke of the Children of God. He said that the summit could lead the way to Middle East peace – with the help of the three religions – and from there, who knows, world peace could be had as well. It wasn’t completely clear if Trump was drawing inspiration from the Sermon on the Mount or from the handbook for contestants in the Miss Universe pageants he once owned.

Trump should be happy with his welcome and with his performance on Sunday. He was received with fanfare worthy of A Thousand and One Nights, which managed to sideline, for a day or two at least, the constant barrage of bad news back home. He delivered one of his better speeches, as he does whenever he sticks to the texts crafted by others. Like his campaign speech in August 2016 about national unity and his address in February 2017 to both houses of Congress, the one in Riyadh will also fuel speculation whether Trump has finally turned the corner and is about to reset his entire presidency. As before, the answer will soon enough turn out to be negative. In fact, Israelis should brace themselves for the possibility that once he lands at Ben Gurion Airport, Trump will release his cooped up energies, dispense with his good behavior and take it all out on Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers.


Palestinians print a poster depicting U.S. President Donald Trump in preparation for his planned visit, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem May 21, 2017. Photo by Mussa Issa Qawasma/Reuters

The Saudis should be happy as well, at least in the short term. Trump crowned them as leaders of the Sunni world and as the spearhead of the campaign against Iran. He cast them as his agents in the Muslim world but also as those who hold him and the American economy in a sensitive place that they can squeeze, when needed. Only time will tell if the unusually belligerent tone taken on Sunday by King Salman, at the behest of his impatient would-be successors, will make the kingdom stronger and add to its prestige or whether the newfound Saudi arrogance will turn out to be a double-edged sword. Saudi Arabia, after all, succeeded in maintaining eight decades of relative stability and absolute prosperity by keeping a low profile, engaging in backdoor diplomacy and letting others do their fighting for them.

Should Israel be happy? That’s a complex question and depends who you’re asking. The fact that Tehran, Damascus, Hezbollah and Hamas were marked by Trump will certainly satisfy Israel. The unification of the Sunni camp around Saudi Arabia and against Tehran will also be viewed as a positive development for anyone who regards the Iran nuclear deal as a catastrophe. Nonetheless, one can’t overlook the fact that the thrust of Trump’s speech was the war on terror, while his attacks on Iran and Syria seemed at times perfunctory. The same is true of Trump’s surprisingly brief mention of the Palestinians, which stood in stark contrast to their centrality in Obama’s Cairo address. The Palestinians, whose initial scepticism was replaced by unexpected hope, may have their expectations dashed again, for the umpteenth time.

Israeli soldiers roll up an Israeli army cyber unit flag as they take part in a dress rehearsal of Trump’s reception ceremony at Ben Gurion Airport, May 21, 2017. Photo by Amir Cohen/Reuters

Nonetheless, it’s premature for Netanyahu and his coalition colleagues to celebrate. There are several warning signs that should give them pause. A president with a messianic drive to make peace is bad news for those who think that Israeli-Palestinian peace is unattainable, and if it is, who are unwilling to pay the price to make it happen. And even though Israel encouraged the White House to reach out to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries and saw it as an opportunity to integrate Israel in an anti-Iranian front, Trump’s ecstatic reaction to the princely welcome engineered by the Saudi indicates that the plan may have succeeded too much.

Trump did urge Muslim states to “drive out” terrorists, but in return he created an obligation to reward them if they do. They don’t really care about the Palestinians, but would be overjoyed if Trump could solve the problem that has been plaguing them for the past 100 years.

They all live like billionaires, think like billionaires and behave like billionaires. They speak Trump’s language.

In the final analysis, Trump connected in Riyadh with his own milieu. These are his guys. Some of them, like the Saudi King, the Qatar Emir or the Omani Sultan are reportedly vastly richer than he is. Some, the rulers of Kuwait or Morocco, are his equals. Others may have only a few hundred million dollars lying around, but they’re in the same club. They all live like billionaires, think like billionaires and behave like billionaires. They speak Trump’s language.

So the question is how will Trump react when he arrives on Monday in a country in which the prime minister has to force his ministers to show up for the arrival ceremony at Ben Gurion Airport, one in which the best laid plans for elaborate welcomes like the one staged by the Saudis often end in mayhem or even catastrophe, one which is led by a prime minister who begs billionaires like Trump to buy them Cuban cigars and pink Champagne. You wanna know the truth? It doesn’t bode well.

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