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Financial Times

CommentaryFariborz S. Fatemi May 23, 2017Former Professional Staff MemberHouse Foreign Affairs CommitteeSenate Foreign Relations Committee
There he goes again, Trump, Putin’s “useful idiot.” With the Russian ghost hanging around his head, he travels to Saudi Arabia for idolization. This was not a trip to atone for his insults to Islam, one of the world’s three great religions, or a trip about security. Put simply, it was about the sordid business deals of himself, his family and entourage. Money. Money. Money. Trump tells the Saudis that the fight against terrorism is a “battle between good and evil.” Knowing nothing, and not knowing that he knows nothing and not caring, Trump is telling this to a Saudi Arabia that long ago made an evil deal, selling its soul to the purveyors of a bastardized version of Islam. It’s the Wahhabis and Salafists coming out of Saudi Arabia that drive most of the terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere. A Saudi Arabia that the US Treasury had said is “the epicenter of terrorism funding.” Furthermore, the Kurds have said the foreign fighters helping Dash (ISIL) are being funded by the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. As he spoke to the group of Muslim nations, Trump must have forgotten that previously he had derided and accused Saudi Arabia of masterminding 9/11 that killed over 3,000 people. And he forgot about his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US. And, traveling with him were two aides, Miller and Bannon, prominent because of their anti-Muslim views. Now Trump is bowing his head to King Salman to have a medal hung around his neck. In that speech, he said nothing about the evil acts being committed by the Saudis against Yemen as he promoted his arms sales. Someone should have told the Saudis the lessons of another arms sale to an evil tyranny, the Pahlavi regime in Iran. It too bought billions of dollars of weapons from the US, squandering the wealth of its people and quickly bringing about its own demise. The fate of a Saudi kingdom built on sand remains to be seen. It is more than laughable that Trump tries to make Saudi Arabia the center of its Middle East policy. Saudi Arabia is a backward 14th century monarchy where eight out of ten workers are non-nationals. Where 60 per cent of the population is under the age of 50 and 85 percent of which have an unfavorable opinion of Trump. A kingdom where they have never had a free election, women have no rights, and dissent and opposition are not tolerated. As a long-time intelligence expert told me, “Trump is incapable of understanding that the more you apply lipstick to a pig it is still a pig. And, if you were an investing person invest in lipstick, because in a Trump era, there are a lot of pigs.” How very sad.