President Donald Trump rightly feted Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, at the White House on Tuesday. Indeed, via an F-15 and F-35 fighter jet overflight, Trump also threw out a red carpet in the sky above Washington, D.C.
The pageantry has upset human rights activists and many in the media.
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After all, bin Salman is an authoritarian leader who was almost certainly responsible for the brutal October 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi was lured to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, where he was chopped into pieces for being too critical of bin Salman. When the crown prince was asked about this on Tuesday, Trump responded idiotically. “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman,” Trump said in reference to Khashoggi. The president continued, saying, “Things happen. But [bin Salman] knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”
Just as he absurdly accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russia engaged in no interference related to the 2016 U.S. elections, Trump is wrong here to reject the abundant evidence to suggest that bin Salman did indeed order Khashoggi killed. And of course, it is a defining principle of democracy that the media have a responsibility to ask tough questions on matters of public import. The basic truth? What happened to Khashoggi was a moral disgrace that stained bin Salman.
Still, leaders must ultimately pursue the policies that best serve their nation’s interests. Judged on that metric, Trump’s red-carpet treatment of bin Salman is warranted. Former President Joe Biden was profoundly foolish to delay meeting bin Salman and only then to fist-bump rather than, as is Arab custom, embrace him at their meeting. This opened the door to Russia and China to draw the crown prince into their orbit while simultaneously weakening U.S. interests.
It should be obvious why America needs a relationship with Saudi Arabia that does not begin and end with Khashoggi.
For a start, 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. He wants to break Saudi Arabia’s dependence on oil and transform the Sunni Arab kingdom into the Middle East’s new center for commerce, innovation, entertainment, and tourism. The scale of bin Salman’s related investments is breathtaking, including the construction of a new city, Neom, and ownership stakes in golf, music, comedy, and other entertainment endeavors.
As oil prices peak, Saudi Arabia’s youth bulge population needs new avenues for employment and aspiration. Even as he has acted capriciously against groups pushing for greater rights, so also has bin Salman taken qualified but significant steps to boost the rights of women. These reforms bear direct importance for U.S. national security in that if Saudi Arabia does not succeed in modernizing its society and diversifying its economy, Salafi-jihadist preachers are going to have a field day with a vast flock of young men who lack jobs, wives, and hope — think ISIS 2.0 on a far grander scale.
Second, Saudi Arabia is now a critical intelligence and security partner for the United States. The days of the Saudi royal family’s tolerance for rampant jihadist fundraising are long over. The Saudi intelligence service, the General Intelligence Presidency, has been instrumental in infiltrating and disrupting dozens of high-casualty terrorist plots against Americans. And while Israel is concerned that Trump is now selling Saudi Arabia F-35 fighter jets, this will not enable Riyadh to challenge Israel’s military edge. It is crucial, however, that bin Salman ensure these planes and their technology are shielded from Sino-Russian espionage, a concern which also applies to Israel’s F-35s.
Speaking of Israel, Trump is also right in seeking a compromise in which Israel limits settlement construction in the West Bank and provides a pathway for peaceful Palestinian aspirations in return for Saudi Arabia’s accession to the Abraham Accords. Bin Salman is also a key partner in U.S. efforts to shape positive political developments in Iraq and Lebanon. This fits with Trump’s broader regional strategy to forge newly cooperative relationships. Take the Abraham Accords and Trump’s recent effort to build a new relationship with Syria’s new ruler, for example.
Third, there’s the obvious economic factor. Bin Salman has pledged $600 billion in new investments into the U.S. economy. Saudi Arabia also remains the key voice of influence in OPEC, able to shape global oil prices. These things provide day-to-day benefit to American lives in a way that the media likes to ignore, but no leader can easily discount.
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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 fete Mao in an effort to draw China away from the Soviet Union. Nixon put American interests first in doing so.
Even if his disdain for Khashoggi’s plight is unbecoming, Trump’s engagement with bin Salman ultimately puts U.S. interests first.