This week the American president was greeted by an especially warm welcome in Saudi Arabia, where dozens of heads of Muslim states were also present. He received a warm if somewhat more qualified reception in Israel. Jonah Goldberg explains Donald Trump’s popularity with Middle Eastern leaders and the pitfalls that lie ahead:
The success . . . of the president’s Middle East trip stands on the ashes of Barack Obama’s failures. It’s easy to forget that for all of Obama’s alleged expertise, his foray into the Middle East foundered on his arrogance and naiveté. In his 2009 Cairo speech, he unspooled clichés as wisdom, thinking that his name alone would put points on the board. He bought into the idea that the road to stability and peace in the Middle East went through Jerusalem.
As Obama learned on the job, he came to believe that the road to peace went through Tehran, crafting an Iranian deal that alienated both our democratic ally Israel and our strategic Sunni allies, chief among them Saudi Arabia. In pursuit of his fantasy, he turned a blind eye to Iran’s crushing of the Green Revolution and dithered to the point of complicity in the Syrian abattoir. Meanwhile, Iran remains as implacably hostile and as determined to be a regional hegemon as ever.
That is the context of Trump’s reception. “Welcome, President Not-Obama!” . . .
Which brings me to Trump’s [own] naiveté when it comes to the Middle East. He manfully called for the destruction of terrorists, but he talked of them as if they were foreign invaders to be driven out of the swamp, not products of it. Like the man who only has a hammer and therefore thinks every problem is a nail, Trump believes that the Middle East’s problems can be solved with terrific “deals.” The Saudis, eager to buy weapons and counter Iran, are all too eager to encourage this view. What alligator doesn’t want sharper teeth?
Read more on Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-goldberg-trump-saudi-20170522-story.html