Commentary: Saudi First foreign policy comes back to bite Trump
US alignment with Riyadh’s worldview is under scrutiny after the disappearance of journalist and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi.
Mounting evidence that Saudi Arabia is behind the disappearance of regime critic Jamal Khashoggi has laid bare the risks of a US Middle East policy aligned closely with Riyadh.
From the war in Yemen to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Washington has invested heavily in a relationship built largely on the personal bond between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. With Prince Mohammed widely suspected of having ordered Khashoggi’s murder inside a diplomatic facility on NATO soil, that strategy is now in jeopardy.
Many critics have argued that President Donald Trump’s silence on human rights abuses in the Gulf and around the world “emboldened” the prince’s worst impulses — notably in an editorial in The Washington Post where Khashoggi had been an opinion columnist during his exile in the United States. Others point to Trump’s awe at his grandiose reception in Riyadh, his first foreign trip, as well as his family business’ opaque deals with Saudi Arabia as leaving the impression — unwittingly or not — that the kingdom could act with impunity.
“I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia,” Trump tweeted in November as Prince Mohammed, often referred to as MBS, was locking up alleged tax dodgers (and potential rivals) in the Ritz Carlton. “They know exactly what they are doing.”
