Trump Sabotages His Own Mideast Coalition
By Robin Wright
By Robin Wright
Less than three weeks ago, on his first trip abroad as
President, Donald Trump greeted the young Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad
al-Thani, who was swathed in white robes and headdress, with effusive warmth.
“We’ve been friends now for a long time, haven’t we?” Trump said. “Our
relationship is extremely good.” The President announced that the two leaders
would discuss “the purchase of lots of beautiful military equipment, because
nobody makes it like the United States. First, that means jobs,” he said,
adding, “It also means, frankly, great security back here” in the Gulf. The
same day, at the summit in Riyadh, Trump warmly welcomed Qatar into his new
coalition of conservative Sunni regimes, designed to confront Islamic extremism
and contain Iran.
On Tuesday, in a series of startling and undiplomatic
tweets, Trump threw the leader of oil-rich Qatar under the diplomatic bus.
Trump’s stunning flip-flop came a day after a toxic split in the Arab world—the
biggest in years—as Saudi Arabia led six countries to sever diplomatic and
commercial relations with neighboring Qatar.
“During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that
there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar –
look!” the President tweeted after the Saudi announcement. He not only took
sides in an intra-Arab dispute; he sabotaged the cohesion of his own new Sunni
coalition—which he touted just last month as an unprecedented foreign-policy
success. Read on....
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