Trump’s Saudi Arabia visit is POTUS buying the love he won’t get at home
Not long after 9/11, the then business magnate and real estate tycoon, Donald Trump, had publicly accused the Saudi Arabian monarchy of masterminding the biggest terror attack on American soil.
As late as 2014, Trump the flamboyant, globe-trotting mogul had “demanded” that Saudi Arabia pays for the upkeep of its Boeing 747 fleet with free oil exchange.
Trump promises jobs for Americans to build weapons for Saudi regime that enabled 9/11 murderers and blocked FBI investigation of 9/11 crimes
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) May 20, 2017
Three years down the line, as the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump has picked none other than the House of Saud to pay his first political and diplomatic respect in a marathon foreign trip.
Embarking on a nine-day visit to countries including Israel, Italy, the Vatican City, Belgium, etc., Trump’s first port of call was Riyadh, where he signed an arms deal worth US dollar 109.7 billion.
SAUDI KING: Come overTRUMP: I can't, I said you guys did 9/11SAUDI KING: We'll buy $110 billion in weaponsTRUMP: pic.twitter.com/FkZq6XnFdB
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) May 20, 2017
Ironies are best bought over with money, and in the case of Donald Trump, the case of glaring historical ironies, with the US President who only recent executed a provisional 90-day ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries to enter the US, being extended a red carpet welcome, couldn’t be any starker.
Air Force One has landed. pic.twitter.com/5c4qHrWQyI
— Tamara Keith (@tamarakeithNPR) May 20, 2017
Weaponsing Saudi Arabia, and, er, also ISIS
King Salman of Saudi Arabia himself welcomed Donald Trump and his wife Melania at the Riyadh airport, as the POTUS embarked from the Air Force One, in the stark, dusty and hot desert landscape.
Evidently, the weekend trip to Saudi Arabia is fast becoming Trump’s most successful two days since he took office as the POTUS, exactly as America sells tanks and helicopters for border security, ships for coastal security, intelligence-gathering aircraft, a missile defence radar system and major cybersecurity tools to the Gulf nation.
However, the biggest and cruellest twist in the tale of Trump courting the Saudis and vice-versa is that by selling massive weaponry to the Gulf country, he’s in turn risking weaponising the ISIS, which draws sustenance and indeed indirect logistical support from the seat of the extremist Wahabi/Salafi ideologies, that is Saudi Arabia.
The hypocrisy of Trump roping in Saudi Arabia to control ISIS is such a brazen sham that there even the establishment US newspapers have balked at praising the POTUS at achieving this staggering arms deal, human rights be damned.
Sidelining Iran’s Shia’ite regime
While the Washington Post has reported that the current deal forms a part of a larger “strategic vision” shared between the two countries, a long haul 10-year agreement worth over US dollar 350 billion, critics have argued that putting this much weaponry in Saudi hands would mean the wars in Yemen and Syria would get further complicated. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch as well as the United Nations have all condemned the brutal war that Saudi Arabia-backed Yemen is waging on its dissidents, who are in turn propped up by the Shia-ite regime in Iran.
In Yemen, Saudi warplanes have conducted massive aerial bombing, killing over 10,000 civilians and displacing about 3 million people. In Syria, the Saudis are hell bent against the Bashar al-Assad regime, which, however, has Iranian and Russian backing.
In selling precision weaponry to Saudi Arabia, some the Obama government put on hold citing the Yemeni war crimes of the Gulf nation, the Trump regime has not only emboldened the Saudi military stranglehold on the beleaguered second-tier conflict zones of the Middle East, but has also angered Moscow and the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
With Rex Tillerson, the current US Secretary of State, opening stating the US intention to coalition with Israel and Saudi Arabia to stall Iran’s prominence, it’s like the carefully calibrated eight-year thaw that the Obama administration achieved with Tehran never happened.
The hostilities and era of sanctions, embargoes and general climate of distrust is set to return, and with high-octane arms deals propping up old US allies, it seems the Middle East can expect deepened quagmire in the already war-torn region.
Lecture on Islam
Trump’s lecture on Islam in Saudi Arabia is one more instance of history coming back to bite the provocative and bitterly racist statements that Trump made during his presidential campaign, asking the country to ban all Muslims, screaming “radical Islam”, and saying things like “bomb the hell out of them”.
The architect of the repealed executive order on Muslim ban, the Trump aide Stephen Miller – a known white supremacist like his adviser Stephen Bannon – has written the Trump speech on Islam.
Great photo of Stephen Bannon sitting next to the grandson of Mohamed Bin Abdul Wahab. (The founder of whhabism) ?? pic.twitter.com/f542mKAENa
— ????? (@Lamia_of_Arabia) May 20, 2017
Whether Trump ruffles a few feathers, or complete kowtows to “your custom, your country, you know best” kind of hypocrisy after sweeping up a frenzy over “radical Islam” in America and making blatantly anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant statements, it will nevertheless be at most a diplomatic hiccup that would be soon eased with the lucrative deals that are being signed or are around the corner.
Interestingly, Trump had critcised former FLOTUS Michelle Obama for not covering her head with a scarf during President Obama’s Saudi Arabia visit. That Melania Trump, as well as daughter Ivanka too, didn’t sport a headscarf, as is custom among non-Saudi women, has invited ridicule from the liberal circles.
Moreover, Trump has also participated in an all-male ceremonial dance with the Saudi royal family, much to criticism from feminists at home. He’s also been bestowed the highest civilian honour in Saudi Arabia, something he shares with Barack Obama, George W Bush and Vladimir Putin.
#Trump nearly decapitated during ceremonial dance in Saudi Arabia. pic.twitter.com/fA1RJFUl2l
— Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) May 20, 2017
Donald Trump joins in on traditional sword dance in Saudi Arabia as part of his first foreign trip as US president https://t.co/NBIvrIWEeM pic.twitter.com/sCUVfmZF7y
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 21, 2017
Nepotism and political profiteering
Apart from selling sophisticated weaponry to a regime that’s notorious for its human rights abuses within and outside its territory, the lead up to the current arms deal also saw Trump’s son-in-law and a “senior adviser” Jared Kushner playing a crucial role in sealing the deal.
Not only did Kushner personally intervene to give the Saudis a discount on the very anti-ballistic missile defence system that the Obama administration had put on hold, he called the Lockheed Martin CEO in the middle of the meeting to ensure that the deal is confirmed before the Trump visit.
US-Saudi deals- $110 billion weapons deal upfront- $350 billion weapons deal over 10 years- $250 billion commercial investment
— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) May 21, 2017
Eyebrows are being raised at Trump family members playing central roles in his scandal-tainted administration, with charges of nepotism and Trump using the presidential post for personal profits flying thick and fast.
In addition, Trump has signed a 250 billion US dollar investment deal with the Saudi to rejig American infrastructure, but out of that about 40 billion dollars are with companies that belong to Trump’s big corporate backers.