On Realpolitick and Peace

President Obama's reception in Saudi Arabia, 2014

The week before last, I was on a flight from London to Denver and seated next to a young man who seemed pleasant, but until the end of the flight we had almost no interaction.  Not surprising:  nowadays passengers on especially long flights tend to bury themselves in their in-seat media - or their own electronic devices that they've brought on board - and interact with one another far less than passengers tended to a generation or so ago.  But in the last hour of the flight, when the I-94's (customs and immigration declaration) were passed out, the young man turned to me for help.  He was Saudi Arabian, a high school student coming to the USA to stay with an American family for half a year as an exchange student.  His English was very basic, too basic for him to fill out the I-94 without assistance.  So I helped him, responding in kind to his pleasantness.  Even though I'm no fan of his country, especially given its intractable stance towards Israel, I tried to see the kid as just a human being who was feeling some anxiety over the relative-minor challenge of filling out a US government form.

President Trump's Reception in Saudi Arabia, 2017

I was thinking of the encounter this weekend, when President Trump went calling on the Saudis.  In addition to the very real (and I think, valid) gripes I have concerning the Saudis' behavior vis-a-vis Israel, I have a hard time seeing the Saudis as anything more than opportunists, wanting to hide behind American power while holding values that are anathema to us.

All this aside, it was hard for me not to take delight in the sort of reception that the Saudis gave the US President, not to mention his entourage which included his Jewish daughter and son-in-law (the latter especially, Jared Kushner, being well-known for his pro-Israel views.)  As we remember, Trump's detractors frequently call him an Islamophobe, and accuse him of sowing hatred towards Muslims and the Islamic world.

Well, either his Saudi hosts didn't read those opinion pieces, or they are too smart to take them seriously - and I suspect it's the latter.  It is very telling that the 81-year-old Saudi monarch, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, endured triple-digit temperatures (fahrenheit) to greet President Trump and his entourage on the tarmac at King Khalid International Airport.

The Right Wing media is awash in pictorial contrasts between the grandiose and extremely warm reception accorded POTUS 45, and the decidedly tepid greeting given President Obama, his immediate predecessor.  This, despite that Obama was seen as being extremely sympathetic and deferential towards the Islamic world - so much so that many reasonable people have wondered if he's a 'closet' Muslim - while Trump is seen by some as an Islamphobe who supposedly wants to rid America of all Muslims.  Although I generally have no taste for political statements via meme, I think the contrast is important and telling.   

And let's not forget also, the reception accorded Trump when he spoke to the conference of leaders from Arab and Islamic countries, on Sunday night.  Did any of them turn their backs, or walk out when Trump spoke?  Of course not.  If Trump is a Muslim-hater, that information somehow didn't reach this crowd either.

Instead, the leaders at the conference in Riyadh listened respectfully to what Trump had to say, because he was addressing an issue of mutual concern:  Radical Islamic Terror of the kind fomented by Iran, which country scares the bejeezus out of them.

(I experienced this myself years back, when I spent five months in Qatar in 2006.  I wondered why the tiny Gulf Emirate, sponsor of the anti-western cable network Al Jazeera, allowed the US and allies to use their country as an operational base for running Operation Iraqi Freedom, including the launching of strike missions from their soil.  Well, I got an earful of why, on the few occasions when I managed to have a conversation with a Qatari:  whether they agreed with our Iraq policies or not, they wanted us in the neighborhood to keep Iran in check.  Iran, not the US, is the enemy they fear.)

This illustrates a great paradox of statecraft.  A leader who is seen as strong, proud of his own country, and forthright even if that means that he says things that uncomfortable to others, is respected and is far more able to engage than a weak leader who is seen as fawning and/or insincere.  Trump is clearly seen in other world capitals as the former, while POTUS 44 was the latter.  Whether we particularly like the Saudis, or they us, or not, it doesn't especially matter as long as we respect one another and can work together towards our common interests.

One of those common interests is, of course, the realization of peace between Israel and her Palestinian neighbors.  As long as the US President was seen as the local policeman, forcing Israel to conform to his particular vision of how to make peace with no clear indication that it would get the Palestinian leadership to make any kind of confidence-building moves themselves, he was an impediment to peace - far more than the 'illegal' Israeli 'settlements.'  Perhaps President Trump, despite all the scorn heaped upon him by his detractors who see him as in way above his head, DOES have a real chance to make a difference in helping this festering part of the world to solve its problems.  Given the spectacular welcomes he received this week, first in Saudi Arabia and then in Israel, perhaps he isn't as clueless and without substance as some think him.  At least, let's give him a chance and see.