Let me start with this insight by K.T. McFarland, President Donald Trump’s Deputy National Security Advisor during his first term. “Eight years ago, during the first few days of President Donald Trump’s first term, I joined his other senior advisers in the White House Situation Room to discuss our approach to Saudi Arabia, which was then in the midst of an internal power struggle. Should we work with the older generation of Saudi leaders, with whom the U.S. has done business with for decades? Or would we take a chance on the younger generation, who were untested, but are committed to massive social and economic change”.
“Jared Kushner made the case for the new leaders, especially Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). Kushner argued they would take Saudi Arabia in a different direction — away from the religiously and socially conservative, insular, extremist-tolerant older generation of their grandparents – and build a modern, tolerant and open society, with rights for women. They wanted to diversify the Saudi economy beyond its reliance on oil and create a modern nation focused on technology, investment and infrastructure. They would stand against Islamic extremism and work with us to destroy terrorist movements. They were open to the idea of peace with Israel as the foundation of a wider peace in the Middle East. The choice was Trump’s, and one of his first major foreign policy decisions.” McFarland stated.
While campaigning for his first term presidency, Trump set out the tone for his foreign policy direction, railing against what he termed” forever wars”, an interventionist foreign policy of past American leaders over the decades such as the Contra war in Nicaragua, the Iraqi and Afghanistan invasion.
He laid out his foreign policy vision during his first speech to the United Nations in 2017, stating. “We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions, or even systems of government, but we do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties, to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation….we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch…”
Fast forward 8 years later..
The President wrapped up a high-stakes visit to the Middle East Gulf States of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE which could be described as one of the most consequential by a U.S President to the region. Business Deals and Building Strategic Partnerships were the hallmark of this visit, and they were in no short supply, underscoring the President’s Policy of “Peace Through Strength”
In a historic speech in the Saudi Capital, Riyadh, while outlining his vision for a prosperous and stable Middle East, President Trump lashed out at America’s Interventionist Past, stating.. “Before our eyes, a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts and 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,”
“It is crucial for the wider world to note, this great transformation has not come from Western Interventionalists flying in with lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs. The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neo-cons, or liberal non-profits like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad, Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought about by the people of the region themselves … developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies.” he continued.
“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.”
“You achieved a modern miracle the Arabian way.” He added.
It is indeed the heralding of a new diplomatic era of America’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East with the Sunni Arab Gulf States as the pivot.
The President ( including the Saudi Crown Prince and Turkiye President, Recep Erdoğan) scored a huge win on another strategic front during this trip. “A cessation of sanctions against Syria to give them a chance at greatness”
The reaction to his announcement of the lifting of crippling sanctions imposed on the Al-Assad Father, Son Regimes dating back decades said it all.. great ovation and applause at the Abdullaziz International Conference Centre, Riyadh, and massive jubilation on the streets of Syria.
As underscored by Newt Gingrinch, 50th Speaker, United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999, it is only Trump that could take this step without recourse to diplomatic and bureaucratic manoeuvrings that will take months on end. In his words. “normal Presidents would have had teams look at it for six months in timidity….he has the guts to take the risk most presidents wouldn’t have taken..”
It even garnered praise from unlikely places…some former Biden- Era Staffers.
The images of Ahmed Al Sharaa, Syria’s new President, a former Al Queda terrorist leader, who spent time in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and until recently as December had a 10m dollar bounty on his head by the United States, shaking hands with, and posing for photos with the President of the United States marked a stunning turn- around, and one that would shape the geopolitical alignments in the Middle East.
It’s a tightening of alliances that isolates Iran and effectively accelerates the waning influence of Iran in the region, with its proxies massively degraded…Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria… Proxies Iran used in carrying out its destabilising influence in d region.
A marked observation…it is not lost on Middle East observers that unlike his first term, Israel was notably absent from this trip.
There are talks of a strain in relationship between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Trump administration has shown it is willing to go it alone, negotiating with Israeli sworn enemies, designated terrorist organisations by Washington -American policy of not negotiating with terrorists being thrown out of the window.
The Trump administration is in direct contact with Hamas; reached a ceasefire deal with the Houthis in Yemen to stop attacking shipping in the Red Sea after intense bombardments, but made no mention of the group stopping its attacks on Israel; offered negotiations to Iran for its nuclear programme, and then on Syria, the President’s announcement lifting sanctions, whose new President the Israelis has branded “an al Qaeda terrorist in a suit.”
“ I have never believed in having permanent enemies”, the president stated in Riyadh.
Definitely, the very powerful and influential pro-Israeli Lobby in the United States, and Hawkish Israeli supporters in the Administration and in Congress will see all these moves as unsettling.
In Israel there is a sense of dismay in the media and in political and security circles with the events that unfolded in the Gulf this past week.
Back in Washington, the President was met on arrival in the Oval Office with a letter signed by over 200 Congressional Republicans urging the President to remain committed to a hard-line Iran strategy,
Of course the United States commitment to Israel and its security remains iron- clad. And the support is broadly bi- partisan.
Both leaders are downplaying the claims of any rift.
Asked by Fox News if he was frustrated by the Prime Minister, Mr Trump replied “No, look, he’s got a tough situation.. Bibi, he’s an angry man, and he should be because of October 7,”
And when asked during his trip on his not going to Israel, Trump said his visits to the Gulf States was “good for Israel,” adding that “having a relationship like I have with these countries… I think it’s very good for Israel.”
Netanyahu has also denied any rift, calling his relationship with Trump “excellent.”
For the Middle East, and much of the rest of the world, it’s a New Order.
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