Posted on 11/22/2018 11:17:47 AM PST by Kaslin
The 633-word statement of President Donald Trump on the Saudi royals' role in the grisly murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi is a remarkable document, not only for its ice-cold candor.
The president re-raises a question that has roiled the nation since Jimmy Carter: To what degree should we allow idealistic values trump vital interests in determining foreign policy?
On the matter of who ordered the killing of Khashoggi, Trump does not rule out the crown prince as prime suspect:
"King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder... (but) it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge."
Yet, whether MBS did or didn't do it, the Saudis have "agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States." And a full fourth of that is for "military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and other great U.S. defense contractors."
"Foolishly" cancel these contracts, warns Trump, and Russia or China will snap them up. Moreover, the Saudis have agreed to pump oil to keep prices down.
Trump is unabashedly putting U.S. economic and strategic interests first. He is not going to damage our relationship with Riyadh and its royal family, even if the future king ordered a cold-blooded killing of a U.S.-based Saudi journalist he regarded as an enemy.
The stark manner in which Trump framed the issue will force the members of Congress of both parties to decide whether they wish to defy Trump, sanction the Saudis and risk the relationship.
Other contentions in Trump's statement suggest that one of the reasons he is giving the crown prince a pass on the Khashoggi killing is that he sees MBS as an indispensable ally against our real enemy in the region.
After his introductory line, Trump goes into a tear that begins: "The country of Iran... is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen."
But is this true?
In 2015, it was on the orders of Mohammad bin Salman, then defense minister, that Saudi Arabia intervened in the civil war in Yemen, after Houthi rebels in the north overthrew a Saudi puppet and overran much of the rest of the country.
It is not Iran but Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with U.S. munitions and logistic support, whose troops, bombs and blockade are responsible for the thousands of causalities in Yemen and the millions who suffer from cholera, malnutrition and starvation.
It is not the Iranians who are trying to close the last port of entry for humanitarian aid for the suffering civilian population.
Iran, said Trump, is "propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens)... Likewise the Iranians have killed many Americans and other people throughout the Middle East."
But the cause of the 7,000 U.S. military dead in the Middle East in this century, and the 60,000 wounded, are the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that were launched by the United States and George Bush, not by Iran.
As for U.S. civilian casualties, the 3,000 we lost in that monstrous atrocity of 9/11 were the victims of 15 Saudi terrorists, not Iranians.
While Iran has aided its Shiite allies in Iraq, and those allies have fought Americans, the major terrorist organizations we fight today in the Near East, Middle East and Africa -- al-Qaida and its affiliates, the Taliban, ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab -- are all Sunni, like the Saudis.
These terrorist groups are Iran's enemies as well as ours.
"Our paramount goal," Trump declared in his statement, "is to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world."
But this objective is every bit as utopian as George W. Bush's second inaugural where he declared the "ultimate goal" of U.S. foreign policy to be "ending tyranny in our world."
Terrorism and tyranny have been with mankind forever, and they will be with mankind forever.
Trump both titled and concluded his statement "America First."
And had an America First policy been pursued in this century, we would not today be tied down in these forever wars of the Middle East.
We would not have attempted to create a Western-style democracy in the wilds of Afghanistan. We would not have invaded Iraq, or attacked Libya, or armed rebels to overthrow Assad, thereby igniting a war that has cost half a million Syrian lives and made refugees of millions.
In his statement, Trump praises Saudi Arabia as a "great ally in our very important fight against Iran."
Yet, Iran has not attacked us, does not want war with us and remains in compliance with the nuclear treaty from which we walked away.
Trump is president because he promised to extricate us from the Mideast wars into which some of his closest advisers, along with some of our closest "allies," helped to plunge his country.
Is President Trump about to replicate President Bush's folly?
If you want a friend, get a dog!
Israel
This fretting about how tyrants in “third world” countries treat people is a new thing and seems to be related to Democrats’ desire to see Iran become the Middle East hegemon.
Netanyahu and I believe Sisi too, have wanted us to go easy on the Saudis in this.
What I figure, is that states assassinate people, some states, not all. They got caught. They can be tried through public opinion. I don’t care if we have some Senators that are going to try and leverage sanctions on KSA per the Magnitsky act.
No. 9/11 should’ve settled that question.
“Israel”
LOL - I was thinking you meant out of the Arab countries, not Middle East geographically. Ditto!
Just friends,
But not like before
https://youtu.be/aTWbm4ZJ8C4
Yep.
Not a tear for Christians, Israelis, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, etc.
Just Islamist monsters.
Mankind has not survived this long by having leaders who are fans of tragedy. Trump is absolutely a throwback to the old warlords and that is not a bad thing. Bush was a scion of a “great family” who had been given way too may second and third chances and who bought into idealistic nonsense way too much because he has had the luxury to do so.
I get Trump, though he makes me feel like a slacker loser. He makes me want to strive to be a better and stronger person. Bush is just frustrating because he did stupid things out of misplaced “honor” that even I had sense enough to know were wrong. President Donald J. Trump inspires me to strive to be a better and stronger person, and that is what good leaders do.
I am in college and there are soy-boy types who have gotten themselves cleaned up because the idealistic division is stark. One guy in particular I thought was a lost cause. He is big, he is strong, he is smart, but he bought into the victimization incel narrative. He’s gotten a haircut, he started dressing nice. He is now a conservative. Trump is absolutely making a difference.
Enemy of my enemy is my friend...kinda sorta.
Russia and Iran would love to drive a wedge in the US Saudi relationship.
Perfect reply.
I thought President Trump was going to get us out of the Mideast and Afghanistan quagmire. Instead, he's making it worse.
If the youngsters in the HOR go into anti-war mode, they'll get significant support from both progressives and anti-globalist conservatives. It could be a real interesting coalition.
Three lies in one short sentence from Buchanan. Impressive. Pat is either senile, seriously deluded, an evil POS, or a combo platter. (I vote the latter). Let's take Pat's lies one at a time.
1) Iran has not attacked us
Iran funded Al Qaeda from '03 until about '11, after which they started funding ISIS. The result: thousands of dead Americans, with exponentially more than that maimed for life. Oh yeah, and Iran's terrorist proxy Hezbollah murdered 241 U.S. Marines while they slept in their barracks in Lebanon in 1983.
2) [Iran] does not want war with us
So the countless "Death to America" chants organized by Iran's leadership over the decades are to ignored, because they really don't MEAN it. Meanwhile, as I pointed out in the paragraph above, Iran HAS been at war with us for a long time. Since '79, in fact.
3) [Iran] remains in compliance with the nuclear treaty
Actually, they've broken in many times.
But Pat must know this. Maybe he figures the best chance for Israel to be annihilated in a nuclear holocaust is with Iran. Hence, the mullahs have his natural and undying support.
Countries do not have friends, countries have interests.
Saudi’s sharia driven interests are diametrically opposed to America’s Constitutional freedoms driven interests.
The Saudis are better friends than the volks in the Lyndon LaRouche/SSPX gallery.
The Saudis are the number one state sponsor of terrorism worldwide.
Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Nusra...all Sunni extremists sponsored by KSA.
Stop pretending the Saudis are good guys, they aren't.
No.
Neither was Stalin.
They are useful for our ends. That is what nations are to each other.
Thanks for pointing that out. I’m a Buchanan fan BUT not always... and sometimes, you can find things he said that are wrong on the surface of things.
Iran has probably attacked us numerous times.
Aside from that, yes, people can say we have interests and not friends but from what I know, we’ve been in this relationship with KSA since 1948 or so.
I was for the first Gulf War, ‘90 but it would be easy to say that war was fought for Saudi Arabia. We had of course, a huge-multi-national coalition in that war.
I’ve had experts tell me different but I don’t care, if we reject KSA, they go to the Russians. That’s fine with me, I have not seen enough proof they are a good neighbor or friend. As I said, I’m fine if the Senate clamps down on KSA.
Saudi’s are our friends because of convenience. They hate Iran and we hate Iran. So they work with us. There is no other reason. If Iran stopped exporting support to Lebanon and Syria we would not need to take sides. Iran is literally forcing us to support The House of Saud.
They ride herd on the Saudi people. That’s a good thing. Other than tha, no, they are not our friends. Just folks that like our dollars.
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