John Law (10:59)
All right, first up, let's start with what the right is saying. The right is mixed on Trump's approach, with some saying he should pursue a close partnership with the Saudis. Others suggest the relationship should be limited and transactional. In the Washington Examiner Tom Rogan wrote. Trump rightly fets Mohammed bin Salman at the White House. Bin Salman is an authoritarian leader who was almost certainly responsible for the brutal October 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, just as he absurdly accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that Russia engaged in no interference related to the 2016 US elections. Trump is wrong here to reject the abundant evidence to suggest that bin Salman did indeed order Khashoggi killed, rogin said. Still, leaders must ultimately pursue the policies that best serve the nation's interests. Judged on that metric, Trump's red carpet treatment of bin Salman is warranted. Future Middle Eastern stability depends greatly on Bin Salman's domestic reforms. While he is paranoid and impulsive in his restraint to perceived domestic challenges, the crown prince has nevertheless embarked on a bold and crucial domestic reform program, rogan wrote. Trump should be judged against a prudent assessment of the varied interests at stake here. Chinese leader Mao Zedong killed tens of millions of his own people in the crazed pursuit of industrialized communism. Still, President Richard Nixon was right to fet Mao in an effort to draw China away from the Soviet Union. In the American Spectator, Doug Bandao argued America shouldn't fight for the Saudi throne. The US should seek to maintain a civil relationship with the kingdom, which is an important Middle Eastern power. However, the relationship should be transactional, based on shared interests, not US Submissiveness. Saudi Arabia will sell oil to America and to the west even if Washington stops exempting MBS from the norms of civilized society, bandao said. Moreover, America's energy revolution, along with the burgeoning international market, has reduced Riyadh's ability to manipulate oil supplies. More than any other region, the Mideast deserves a dose of America first. The president has spoken of his determination to run the world. Better to leave most countries to handle their own affairs, especially in the Middle east, bandao wrote. After their dinner, the president should send MBS and his oversized travel party on their way. It's time for the royals to stop treating the US Armed forces as a modern janissary corps tasked with their protection. Let the crown prince convince the Saudi people that his rule and the monarchy are worth defending. Alright, that is it for what the right is saying. Which brings us to what the left is saying. The left argues that Trump has whitewashed MBS's human rights violations. Others say Trump's approach to the Saudi relationship is short sighted. The New York Times editorial board wrote, no, Mr. President, we cannot leave it at that. The realities of geopolitics have long required the United States to ally itself with foreign leaders who commit terrible deeds. Saudi Arabia is a classic example of such a country today. It both has a disturbing human rights record and is a legitimately valuable American partner in countering Iran's aggressions and building a more stable Middle east, the board said. But working with imperfect partners does not mean that the United States should cover up and lie about their misdeeds, as President Trump did when receiving Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Mr. Trump embraced the prince's implausible claim of innocence in the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and journalist, and berated Mary Bruce of ABC News for asking about the killing. It suggested that the truth was irrelevant, and it discarded the hard work of American intelligence in trying to determine that truth, the board wrote. The role of the news media in our democracy is not to flatter foreign leaders or for that matter, American ones. It is to pose important and sometimes challenging questions and publish the facts. As president, Mr. Trump repeatedly shows contempt for this principle. In Bloomberg, Andreas Kluth said the US is treating the Saudis as it should treat NATO. Donald Trump is about to repeat a mistake he has been making with America's partners all over the world. He keeps confusing the proper uses of clarity and ambiguity in foreign policy, using one when the situation calls for the other, cluth wrote. Hosting the Saudi Arabian crown prince in the White House tomorrow, for example, the US President will add clarity to a relationship that would benefit instead from remaining ambiguous. By contrast, he has introduced unnecessary ambiguity into relationships that were or need to be clear with NATO, South Korea and Japan, among others. If a security guarantee is given to buy Saudi support for the peace process in the Gaza Strip or normalization with Israel, it's unnecessary because those steps are in Riyadh's interest, too. If it's meant to keep the Saudis from fraternizing with the Chinese, it will fail because the crown prince wants to hedge his bets with all major powers, kluth said. What it will do instead is commit an overstretched America to yet another hotspot of conflicts, possibly encouraging Riyadh to take more risk in its neighborhood and preventing the US from pursuing its own national interest. Alright, that is it for what the right and the left are saying. Which brings us to what Middle east writers are saying. Some Middle eastern writers see MBS's US trip as a significant diplomatic victory. Others say the two leaders have shared interests that can be used for peace in the Middle East. Eye Mohamed al Masri wrote bin Salman's Washington comeback delivers sweeping gains for Saudi Arabia. The meeting signified a shift in the Saudi American relationship, with the two countries agreeing to unprecedented levels of cooperation that could shift the power dynamic between them, al Masri said. Saudi money already lines the US From Wall street to Hollywood, but Tuesday's visit will inject a lot more of it. But such massive investments, even if only partially fulfilled, shift the American Saudi power dynamic, at least to some extent. While the US has long enjoyed the leverage advantage over Saudi Arabia, the latter's increased influence over the US Economy arguably shifts the balance in its favor. The crown prince has now fully emerged from the Khashoggi murder affair, and Saudi Arabia has purchased influence in the American economic, political and defense spheres. He can return to Saudi Arabia showing tangible progress on his Vision 2030 aspirations, which involves strengthening Saudi military capacity and diversifying the national economy away from oil, al Masri wrote. Trump will be able to point to hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign investments, likely significant job creation and the strengthening of ties with an important ally. But a wide range of onlookers will be dismayed at what took place in Washington. In Arab news, Abdul Rahman Al Rashid explored the importance of the Trump MBS meeting. Saudi Arabia manages its regional relationships with the goal of preventing broader collapse, starting with the Beijing brokered agreement with Iran and continuing through Riyadh's revival of the two state solution. That proposal triggered a wave of regional and international support, along with expectations of collective ties with Israel down the line, al Rashid said. A series of steps ranging from Beijing to Tehran, Islamabad and Damascus shows the nature of the crown prince's approach, balanced relations de escalation and preparing the region for a different phase. Trump has articulated a parallel vision. In his address to the Knesset, he said Israel had achieved all it could through military force and that the time had come to channel its strength toward peace. The crown prince and the president are capable of working together whenever possible to push the region toward greater stability, al Rashid wrote. The Trump administration is aligning itself with successful economic powers, not just military ones. Saudi Arabia's importance lies in its central role in the region and the Islamic world, its influence on global energy security, and its emergence as a rising economic force within the G20. Alright, let's head over to Will for his take.
