Remember when Saudi Arabia was a “pariah” state in the early days of Joe Biden’s presidency? That was then. Now the desert kingdom is America’s favorite destination for international diplomacy. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s influence spreads beyond the Mideast. Negotiators now flock to Riyadh to end the war in Europe. President Trump’s first planned foreign trip will be to the Arabian peninsula.
In his first term Mr. Trump also made Saudi Arabia — and Israel — his first foreign stops. “People were surprised,” the president said yesterday, but “he’s great, the crown prince.” While that 2017 trip was marked by a gathering of dignitaries around a glowing orb, Mr. Trump saw it as a business success. The Saudis, he said, “agreed to buy $450 billion worth of American goods, military and otherwise.” This time “we are close to a trillion dollars,” he said.
The planned trip is significant beyond the transactional dimension. While a date is yet to be determined, Mr. Trump says he will also stop at the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. No word about a stop in Israel, where anger at Hamas-supporting, Al Jazeera-propagandizing Qatar is growing. Either way, MBS’s stature as a leader is rising in the region and beyond. The Saudi kingdom is now a favored destination.
What gives? As is often the case, part of MBS’s reversal of fortune has to do with the pendulum swings of Washington’s power shifts. Mr. Biden hated Mr. Trump’s partiality to the House of Saud. He promised a “value-based” foreign policy at a time when Riyadh waged a bloody war in Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries. Under Mr. Biden’s pressure the war ended and Yemen’s Houthi terrorists were taken off Washington’s terror list to boot.
Mr. Trump, in contrast, is pummeling the Houthis. How will that sit with risk-averse Riyadh that now strives to forget the Yemen war? As the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ vice president, Jonathan Schanzer, tells our Benny Avni, a secret 2023 Beijing-brokered deal stopped the Houthis from firing at the kingdom. Saudi Arabia was a Mideast island of calm throughout the 18-month turmoil in the wake of October 7, 2023.
Keeping out of wars is a top goal for the Riyadh prince, who is busy steering the Saudi economy away from solely relying on oil. Mr. Trump says that unlike his predecessor he is committed to keeping open global sea lanes, including the Red Sea. Can he enlist MBS in that worthy cause? Offering global prestige from hosting a Putin-Zelensky summit might help. So would a deal to marry Saudi wealth with Israel’s knowledge-based economy.
As a former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Karen Elliott House,* writes, MBS “won’t allow decades of corrupt Palestinian leadership and Arab division to stand in the way of his pursuit of Saudi Arabia’s interests.” Joining the Abraham Accords is one such interest. The Saudis, additionally, are reportedly backing a Syrian-Israeli peace deal. Yet these — and ending the Ukraine war — will be, as they say in horse racing, a difficult trifecta.
Most Saudis are said to oppose a peace treaty with Israel at this time. President Putin seems uninterested in ending the war he started in 2022. That said, betting on Riyadh might yet advance America’s global agenda. The Saudis, despite their hedging, consider Washington a top ally, as their investment pattern shows. MBS is no longer a “pariah.” How would we know Mr. Trump’s Saudi trip was a success? If Jerusalem is added to the itinerary.
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* Ms. House’s second book on Saudi Arabia, “The Man Who Would Be King: Mohammed bin Salman and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia,” based on extensive interviews with the Crown Prince, is due out in July from Harper.
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