Rather than ask a substantiative question about the future of the Middle East and the world, the media preferred to focus on an eight year old murder and invoke 9-11 to embarrass the President and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia in person.
Last week, President Donald Trump welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to the White House, extending white glove treatment and all the necessary fanfare to the Middle Eastern leader. Though even skeptical news sources such as the progressive “explainer” website Vox.com acknowledged the meeting “brought some tangible results” including increased investment in the US economy ($1 trillion), an agreement to purchase US tanks and planes, and the designation of Saudi Arabia as a “major non-NATO ally,” the same status Israel enjoys, much of the media chose to focus almost exclusively on the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the Crown Prince is believed to have ordered. Given the opportunity to ask President Trump and the Crown Prince relevant questions about our increasingly strong alliance and its importance to both the Middle East and the entire world, ABC White House Correspondent Mary Bruce chose to potentially embarrass them both by bringing up the murder and invoking 9-11 no less. “Your Royal Highness, the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 9/11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you? And the same to you, Mr. President,” she said in more of an accusatory statement than a question. After labelling ABC “fake news,” President Trump noted the obvious, “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.” “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you liked him or didn’t like him, things happen,” he added before declaring “He knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.” (On a side note, can someone please explain to me what the 9-11 families have to do with foreign policy almost 25 years later?) Afterwards, the mainstream media chose to focus on the question rather than the results of the meeting. A few sample CNN headlines include “The many times Trump has promoted the Saudi crown prince’s Khashoggi denials,” “‘A disgusting display’: 9/11 family member reacts to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Oval Office visit,” “Analysis: Trump’s anti-press outburst hits differently with a Saudi prince by his side,” and “Jack Tapper on Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights record and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.” When they did address the result of the meeting, it was to suggest the output was negative somehow, as in “Why Trump’s plan to sell F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia is so controversial” and “Jets, chips, and a clean slate: Saudi Arabia’s crown prince got almost everything he wanted from Trump.”
While I doubt they intended it this way, the last article indirectly explains one of the key reasons why President Trump has been keen to cultivate a stronger relationship with the Crown Prince and why he felt it inappropriate for a reporter to embarrass him at an important, highly publicized meeting. CNN began with the claim that President Trump has fundamentally altered his predecessor’s stance on Saudi Arabia, noting “Just three years ago, the US was openly reconsidering its relationship with Saudi Arabia. President Joe Biden had vowed to make Mohammed bin Salman a pariah. Even arms sales to one of America’s closest military partners were put under review,” but they completely failed to mention that this approach was only temporary. Rather than continue with a hardline stance that relegated them to pariah status, President Biden himself was almost immediately forced to change course because of Saudi Arabian’s influence on energy prices and his desire to see them join the Abraham Accords to normalize their relationship with Israel. The policy they described as thought it were permanent dates back to 2020 when the President was talking tough on the campaign trail, but was rapidly reversed by July 2022, when he gave the Crown Prince a fist bump of all things at their first in person meeting. At the time, he was asked by a reporter what he would do if the Crown Prince ordered the murder of someone else, and he responded, “God love you. What a silly question. How can I possibly be sure of any of that? If anything occurs like that again, they’ll get that response and much more.” After, he proceeded to practically beg the Saudi government to produce more oil and likely because of his previous hardline stance, was promptly rebuffed, or as The Guardian put it at the time, “Oil price rises after Joe Biden fails to secure Saudi output increase. Increase will keep up the pressure at pumps, where drivers have faced record petrol and diesel prices.” Naeem Aslam, the chief market analyst at Avatrade, described it this way, “The message is that it is Opec+ that makes the oil supply decision, and the cartel isn’t remotely interested in what Biden is trying to achieve. Opec+ will continue to control oil supply, and one country alone cannot determine the oil supply – at least that is the message that traders have taken from Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia.” In fact, Saudi Arabia further embarrassed the President by decreasing oil production instead of increasing them as asked a few months later, then again in April and July 2023. Thus, President Biden’s attempt to turn Saudi Arabia into a pariah was at the expense of our own foreign policy goals, alienating them when we needed help, leading a public embarrassment.
President Trump, of course, has charted a different course based on an entirely different approach. If anyone was paying attention, he explained this himself during his triumphant trip to the Middle East earlier this year. At the time, he addressed Saudi Arabia specifically, describing their miraculous transformation to modernity, “over the past eight years, Saudi Arabia has proved the critics totally wrong. The transformation that has occurred — even by these incredible business leaders, I mean you have the biggest leaders in business anywhere in the world standing right before us — but the transformation that has occurred under the leadership of King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed has been truly extraordinary. Such a thing has I don’t think ever happened before. I’ve never seen anything at that scale happen before. And I guess maybe you could say the United States is doing pretty well too, but I don’t think too many people have seen that happen before. Majestic skyscrapers, the towers that I see, the difference between now and eight years ago. And eight years ago, it was very impressive. But the towers that I see rising, some of the exhibits that I was shown by Mohammed, what I’ve seen there is just an amazing, amazing process, amazing genius of so many people, architecture. But I have a feeling I know where many of those ideas came from, happens to be sitting right in this room, right before me.” From there, he broadened the scope to the entire region, “In other cities throughout the peninsula, places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Doha, Muscat, the transformations have been unbelievably remarkable. Before our eyes a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts of tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos; where it exports technology, not terrorism; and where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence.” Finally, the President attributed this progress not to Western interventionist policy or the imposition of our values on the region as his predecessors have attempted, but to the region itself. It’s “crucial for the wider world to note this great transformation has not come from Western interventionalists or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives — developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies in your own way. It’s really incredible what you’ve done. In the end the so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves. They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves.”
CNBC reported on the trip by noting the contrast between the reception President Trump received and his predecessor, claiming “The warm body language and free-flowing mutual compliments signified a stark difference in tone from visits to the country by officials from the Biden administration, which were peppered with tension.” Taufiq Rahim, principal at 2040 Advisory and author of Trump 2.5: A Primer, noted that “Trump’s trip to the Gulf reflects the increasing personalization of geopolitics. The region’s leaders have responded accordingly, putting on an ornate display for the visiting president. Flattery and compliments become as important to the announcement and substance of deals.” “Sure, a lot of it is theater,” explained Tarik Solomon, board member and former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Saudi Arabia. “But in this region, signaling ambition is half the game. Even if only 50% sticks, it’s still an impactful play.” “The Gulf has always gotten along better with business-first presidents, and President Trump fits that mold perfectly,” Mr. Solomon continued. “He still symbolizes fast money, big defense, and access to American tech. So, if cozying up to him helps secure a seat at the table of the next world order, the Gulf is bringing the gold-plated chair.” While some suggested the President benefited from friendly, or perhaps not so friendly competition between countries in the Middle East, “many,” CNBC’s description, believed we were witnessing a “long-term, strategic alignment,” one which began under President Trump’s first Administration. “I do not view the big economic announcements as a competition among the three countries; rather, they reflect a competition with other regions — Europe for example — for a closer relation with the U.S. administration,” explained Ahmed Rashad, an Abu Dhabi-based assistant professor of economics at the Economic Research Forum. “The economic deals appear vital to increase the attractiveness of the Middle East visit. On the other hand, the primary motive of the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries appears to be strengthening relations with the U.S. and securing access to advanced technologies,” he added.
More recently, The Atlantic, not exactly a Trump-friendly outlet, went so far as to suggest that President Trump’s America First approach appears to be having some success, at least in the short term. Ten months in, Thomas Wright asked, “What if ‘America First’ Appears to Work?” Though he didn’t offer the most flattering description of the approach, calling it “an unsettling but coherent vision that exploits U.S. allies for economic gain and downplays strategic competition with U.S. rivals in favor of moneymaking deals,” he went on to assert that the “short-term consequences have so far been muted, and that may be the most consequential revelation of all. President Trump has shown that a nationalist, protectionist, and transactional approach to global affairs can be sustained without immediate calamity.” Mr. Wright went on to summarize some of the results in America and around the world, taking a broader view than the Middle East alone. “The S&P 500 is up about 37 percent since April 8, and the Atlanta Federal Reserve estimates that annual economic growth is currently 4 percent.” President Trump has also “used his leverage to extract grossly unbalanced trade deals from U.S. allies. For instance, Japan has agreed to invest $550 billion in the U.S. economy—with the U.S. reaping 90 percent of the profit from that investment after the principal has been paid off. Trump has negotiated a similar deal with South Korea. Trump’s hardball tactics have gotten American allies to invest more in their militaries. Most NATO countries have agreed to spend 3.5 percent of GDP on defense and 1.5 percent on defense-related infrastructure. Amid some grumbling, Indo-Pacific allies are also increasing their defense spending. These numbers were trending up anyway, but the commitments are probably higher than they would have been had Trump not threatened to withdraw American-security guarantees.” While these are self-evidently positive developments for the United States, Mr. Wright oddly proceeded to dismiss this success and without any evidence, assert these gains can only be in the short term, arguing that the establishment needs to figure out a way to roll back rather than continue the approach. The “internationalists need to be ready for the possibility that an unconstrained ‘America First’ policy might be politically popular, or at least not politically unpopular, because the short-term costs are not obvious. Its problems could take a while to become self-evident. They must figure out how to make the case against ‘America First’–ism—not just the noise and chaos surrounding it, but its core tenets. The best way to do that is to talk plainly about the troubled state of the world today and the choice America faces…We’re back to the law of the jungle, where countries can and will do what they feel they can get away with.”
Perhaps needless to say, the more cynical among us and those who do not believe the world began on January 20th when President Trump retook office, would note that the troubles Mr. Wright is worried about all predate the inauguration, in some cases by decades. Beyond the challenges President Biden had with Saudi Arabia, Russia invaded Ukraine while he was in office and despite the rule of international law and the might of the free world standing against it. Hamas unleashed its devastating attack on Israel during the same period, and none of the diplomats could stop it. China has been threatening Taiwan for years, and seems unlikely to have been moved by the international order if the Chinese Communist Party chose to invade. Whatever Mr. Wright or others may insist, the international army of diplomats have been powerless to alter any of this, offering little more than talk while President Trump appears to have almost singlehandedly transformed the Middle East, completely neutering Iran and forging a fragile peace in Gaza. According to the experts in the region quoted above, he’s done so because of his transactional business first approach, not despite it. To anyone but the experts, this should not be a surprise. Whatever you think of the Crown Prince in particular or Saudi Arabia in general, and clearly they are not Western democracies that embrace anything close to our values, they are key players in the region and the world who aren’t going anywhere despite what we may wish. Therefore, we can choose to deal with them in a way that’s advantageous to us despite our differences – and yes at times their violence and what we consider barbarity – or we can choose to fail as President Biden did. The reality, as hard as it may be to hear, is that Saudi Arabia doesn’t want our values and is not interested in them. We can accept it as Trump has done, or not, but either way, the sight of the media undermining the President in real time was nothing short of disgusting.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 