On Saudi Arabia, Trump Has a Clue
His cardinal fault is his failure to ritualize the expected hypocrisies.
Putting America first may be the duty of any president. As the organizing principle of a great power’s foreign policy, it lacks a bigger picture and a sense of the direction of events. What somebody said of Charles I might be said of Donald Trump: “His policy was a series of intrigues which failed, and a succession of bargains in which he asked much, offered little, and got nothing. As it was purely dynastic in its aim, and at once unprincipled and unsuccessful, it left him with no ally.”
Those words are 118 years old, written by a long-dead British historian. Yet Mr. Trump may be getting a bad rap on one subject—Saudi Arabia. No president would be eager to dump a relationship in which the U.S. has invested so much, though other presidents would wave their hands more artfully to distract from that fact. Mr. Trump’s cardinal fault is his failure to ritualize the expected hypocrisies.
Still, the idea that he has given America’s imprimatur to strongmen everywhere to eliminate their enemies assumes that strongmen everywhere are not, by now, clued into Mr. Trump’s basic gadfly act. They were probably among the few buyers who actually read Bob Woodward’s book. Mr. Trump is barely a member of his own administration. His long-term clout is doubtful. He can hardly secure his own position, much less Mohammed bin Salman’s.
Let’s also admit what we don’t know. Did the CIA leak its assessment that MBS, the Saudi crown prince, ordered the Khashoggi killing to pressure Mr. Trump? Or did Mr. Trump authorize the leak to pressure the Saudis? We don’t know.
If Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had such an A-to-Z view of the plot to kill Khashoggi, why didn’t he prevent it? We don’t know.
One downside of a U.S. president being held in such contempt by domestic elites is their undifferentiating rush to be seen contradicting and denouncing everything he does. The American policy establishment should recall the lesson of Aug. 24, 1963, when the U.S. incautiously signaled support for a coup in South Vietnam. In any institution that isn’t a monarchy, MBS’s removal would be a no-brainer. He’s clearly a liability. The true sovereign authority, MBS’s father King Salman, is reported to be ailing, in the early stages of dementia but still capable of providing “wise leadership,” at least according to President Trump. Even so, the king doesn’t name his successor. That decision will lie with a family council after his death. MBS’s chances of succeeding to the throne without family opposition, even bloodshed, would seem to grow weaker by the day.
As a patriotic cynic like Mr. Trump would also realize better than most, the U.S. is the U.S., and Saudi Arabia is Saudi Arabia. Iran was once a pillar of U.S. schemes for regional stability and then wasn’t; Saddam’s Iraq was and then wasn’t; post-Saddam Iraq was envisioned as a new pillar and then allowed to become a fount of instability. Under President Obama, there was some inkling that Iran might become the new stanchion of stability. Whatever. The U.S. sails majestically on.
What’s more, any successor Saudi regime wouldn’t be less eager to sell oil to the world or buy U.S. arms.
Of course, MBS could still succeed to the throne; all might be forgiven and forgotten over time. But this seems like wishing on a hope. The killing of Jamal Khashoggi ruined the stone-faced calm that kept inconvenient questions for the U.S.-Saudi relationship from bubbling up.
Khashoggi was not only close to the Islamist forces of the Muslim Brotherhood but a long-time confidant and protégé of Prince Turki bin Faisal, who headed Saudi intelligence for 24 years and then stepped down unexpectedly just days before Sept. 11, 2001. After the attacks, the U.S.’s hastening of dozens of ranking Saudis out of the country was undoubtedly driven by concern of how the public would react upon learning that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. But what else was the move driven by? You don’t have to believe the Saudi government was complicit in the attacks to know that the teeming ant pile of the royal family and Saudi elite is a different story. Thousands of princes and retainers live off the state and state connections. All but certainly some handful of them supported Osama bin Laden, knew broadly of his plans, may even have endorsed his intention to strike the U.S. in a manner that Osama believed (simplistically) would disable the U.S. political and economic system.
If Saudi royals crave an airing of this dirty laundry, they know what to do: Keep MBS in power. Undoubtedly among the interested would be the 9/11 families who managed to win, over President Obama’s veto, sweeping bipartisan support for their lawsuit to hold the Saudi government accountable for the murder of their loved ones on 9/11.
If the Saudis think President Trump can (or wants to) protect MBS against all that would follow, they should think again.
Appeared in the November 24, 2018, print edition.