Trump Sides With the Iran Hawks on Saudi Arabia

The fight will continue for the president’s ear, but on the Middle East, for foreign-policy restrainers, this could be a presidency slipping away.

Analytics 12:36 22.11.2018

What should we make of President Donald Trump’s extraordinary White House statement on Saudi Arabia and the Middle East yesterday?

For one, it seemed to be clearly written by him (though a source close to the White House told me it was actually written so as to mimic the president’s voice and Sen. Rand Paul floated that it was written by National Security Advisor John Bolton), bespeaking a deeply-felt personal urgency and frustration over the continued fallout surrounding the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

But it also provided the clearest distillation yet of what Trump means by “America First”—a controversial phrase with connotations evocative of the 1930s—at least as it pertains to the Middle East; Trump has used the phrase since a candidate.

“America First! The world is a very dangerous place!” the president wrote. By the third sentence, of a statement on Saudi Arabia, he is talking about Iran.

“Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq’s fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria,” Trump said. “Iran states openly, and with great force, ‘Death to America!’ and ‘Death to Israel!’”

Trump adds: “On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. . . . Additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism.”

In my view, Iran, not Russia, not North Korea, is at the core of the Trump administration’s still-emerging foreign policy. On Russia and North Korea, the president’s rhetoric—though not necessarily his policies—has been far more conciliatory, especially in 2018.  And on Afghanistan, Trump has expressed a desire, like many Americans, of wanting out.

But on Iran and the greater fight for the Middle East, the president has, for now, joined the most hawkish elements in the country, who have  appropriated the phrase “America First” that many originally thought was even neo-isolationist in nature. With Tuesday’s statement, Trump has explicitly done the precise opposite of acting like an isolationist: he’s taken a side in the great power struggle in the Middle East.

A former White House official told me he thought the statement Tuesday was embarrassing and shameful, further evidence of the continued tussle in Trumpworld for this administration’s foreign policy. The president, often mercurial and self-contradictory, could yet shift his thinking. But at this moment, the American posture in the Middle East is not so much Patrick J. Buchanan as it is Frank J. Gaffney.

The controversial Washington think-tanker denied to me in August 2017 that he’d directly advised the administration. To the contrary, he’d actually endorsed and counseled Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump’s bitter primary rival, in the late stretches of the trench warfare 2016 primary (something, like most who have come over to Trump after the primary, he has sought to minimize). But in style and substance, there was no greater avatar for Trump’s statement Tuesday than Gaffney’s worldview.

Trump explicitly namechecked the Muslim Brotherhood, a career-long hobby horse of Gaffney’s, and depicted the Middle Eastern theater as straightforward. David Reaboi, an alumnus of Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy and now with the administration-friendly Security Studies Group, fleshed the statement out Wednesday morning in an illuminating radio interview. Reaboi has commented to me in this publication before; there should be no reason to doubt his sincerity. But for Reaboi, the joint action of last week’s indictments in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia coupled with U.S. sanctions was sufficient, and it’s time to get back to business.

“Once these are punished,” Reaboi told Larry O’Connor’s radio show Wednesday. “Let’s go back to the business of regional security. Let’s go back to the business the interests of the United States and our allies. And you know, Saudi Arabia is a long-time ally, and specifically an ally against both political Islam in both the Shia and Sunni manifestations: Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

That last bit is the core of the disagreement between those seeking foreign policy restraint and those hardliners who see “the interests of the United States” as thwarting “political Islam” in the Middle East. Very importantly: it also separates this ascendant cohort from neoconservatives.

The neocons and those historically under their wing—such as Sens. Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio—have long sought a foreign policy based on morality and democratization. That’s not at all what this newer contingent wants, especially after the failures in Iraq and the political successes of organized social conservatism in the region in recent decades, the election of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon. To the contrary, this faction advises the United States to keep its thumb on the scales against democracy if it means a political Islam victorious. No regime is more willing to undertake that mission than the government in Riyadh.

Curt Mills is a foreign-affairs reporter at the National Interest

IEPF issued a statement regarding Azerbaijani children at the UN Human Rights Council

News line

Bridge collapse kills 9 in India's Gujarat state
15:15 09.07.2025
Azerbaijani, UAE presidents to meet in Abu Dhabi
15:00 09.07.2025
Latest Red Sea attack on Greek ship kills four crew, wounds two
14:45 09.07.2025
Death toll in Kenya from anti-government protests rises to 31
14:30 09.07.2025
Tunisian court sentences opposition leader to 14 years in prison
14:15 09.07.2025
South Korean defense minister nominee calls for restoration of inter-Korean military pact
14:00 09.07.2025
Father to Bury Son, Three Decades After 1995 Srebrenica Genocide
13:45 09.07.2025
Tashir Group of Companies: Searches in office of Electric Networks of Armenia CJSC politically motivated
13:30 09.07.2025
20 Individuals Still Missing Following Landslip at China–Nepal Border Port
13:15 09.07.2025
Kazakhstan, China agree to contribute to Middle Corridor dev’t
13:15 09.07.2025
Massive Russian Drone–Missile Blitz Strikes Ukraine—Air Defenses Scramble
13:00 09.07.2025
Iran Orders Millions of Afghans to Leave by July 6 or Risk Arrest
12:45 09.07.2025
Tomorrow in Abu Dhabi: Aliyev and Pashinyan Hold Crucial Peace Process Talks
12:30 09.07.2025
Heavy rainfall hits SW China, 5 missing in Sichuan
12:15 09.07.2025
U.S. Detaining Individuals from Three Continents at Guantanamo Immigration Facilities
12:00 09.07.2025
Israel eliminates Hamas commander in Lebanon — IDF
11:45 09.07.2025
South Korea sends 6 rescued North Koreans back across sea border
11:30 09.07.2025
US condemns Houthi attacks on cargo ships in Red Sea
11:15 09.07.2025
Trump says he considers agreeing to more sanctions on Russia
11:00 09.07.2025
Today is a Day of Diplomacy in Azerbaijan
10:45 09.07.2025
Mexico probes former president for allegedly taking millions in bribes from Israeli businessmen
10:30 09.07.2025
Trump, Israel’s Netanyahu meet for a second time about a ceasefire in Gaza
10:15 09.07.2025
Death toll surpasses 100, at least 160 missing in Texas
10:00 09.07.2025
Mediators move closer to securing Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza
09:45 09.07.2025
FBI launches probes into former FBI, CIA directors
09:30 09.07.2025
Trump's envoy says US 'hopeful' 60-day Gaza ceasefire agreed upon 'by end of this week'
09:15 09.07.2025
Azerbaijan hosts official reception at Gulustan Palace on occasion of professional holiday of diplomats
09:00 09.07.2025
Organisation of Turkic States, TURKPA congratulate Azerbaijani diplomats on professional holiday
08:45 09.07.2025
Rubio: US waiting for signing of Azerbaijan-Armenia peace treaty
08:30 09.07.2025
Russia charges former deputy defense minister with fraud, illegal arms trafficking
20:45 08.07.2025
Far-right Israeli ministers call to block Gaza aid, enforce starvation, halt ceasefire talks
20:30 08.07.2025
Ukraine appeals to OPCW to investigate possible use of chemical weapons by Russia
20:00 08.07.2025
Minister: Slovenia considers Azerbaijan key partner in green transition
19:45 08.07.2025
Ukrainian forces push back and hold ground in Russian regions, army chief says
19:30 08.07.2025
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan open new border crossing point
19:15 08.07.2025
Azerbaijan, Slovenia discuss green energy collaboration
19:00 08.07.2025
Baku hosts conference on role of National Leader Heydar Aliyev in media development
18:45 08.07.2025
Another Training Session Held at IEPF Headquarters – Representation at the UN in Focus
18:15 08.07.2025
'We will de-risk our economies, but we do not want to decouple,' EU Commission president says on relations with China
18:15 08.07.2025
France’s Macron makes state visit to UK with migration and Ukraine on agenda
18:00 08.07.2025
Hamısı