CRAZY POOR MIDDLE EASTERNERS
I greatly enjoyed the movie “Crazy Rich Asians” because, beyond the many laugh lines, it reminded me of an important point: Rich Asia has gotten really rich — not because it doesn’t have political, tribal, ethnic and religious differences like other regions, but because in more places on more days it learned to set those differences aside and focus on building the real foundations of sustainable wealth: education, trade, infrastructure, human capital and, in the most successful places, the rule of law.
It got me thinking that if someone were to do a similar movie about the Middle East it could be called “Crazy Poor Middle Easterners.” Because, with a few exceptions, that region has never been a bigger mess.
Now President Donald Trump says he wants to get out of the Middle East. But America’s real choices there are not stay or go, but be smart or dumb. And Trump has been dumb. He’s subcontracted order-making there to our allies Israel and Saudi Arabia and his pal Vladimir Putin. So now Trump is getting a lesson in what happens when America writes blank checks to allies and pals — who share some of our interests but also have extreme impulses of their own — and abdicates real diplomatic leadership.
Let’s go to the videotape. Iran has far overstretched itself, extending its malign military and religious influence into Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, where it has reportedly partnered with the Alawite/Shiite regime of Bashar Assad.
Israel’s prime minister has smartly built a relationship with Putin over the last three years to ensure that Israel’s air force can operate against Iran in Syria and that Russia keeps the Iranians away from the Israeli border. But even with that, and even though the Israelis have so penetrated Iranian units that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards land supply planes full of missiles in Damascus at 6 p.m. and Israel blows them up by 8 p.m. — the Iranians keep trying to turn Syria into a forward missile base against Israel.
And on Tuesday, Russia’s air force bombed Idlib province — the last major gathering center for Islamist anti-regime rebels in Syria.
Trump tweeted: “President Bashar al-Assad of Syria must not recklessly attack Idlib Province. The Russians and Iranians would be making a grave humanitarian mistake to take part in this potential human tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. Don’t let that happen!”
Trump seems to have drawn a red line with his tweet, but Russia and Iran are telling the U.S. and Israel: Without troops on the ground, you don’t have a vote. We’re going for broke. What is Trump going to do if Iran, Assad and Russia ignore him?
And then there’s Saudi Arabia. I have little doubt that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was the only one in his family who would have initiated vital social, religious and economic reforms that he’s dared to do all at once — and that he is also the only one in that family who’d have undertaken the bullying foreign policy initiatives, domestic power plays and excessive personal buying sprees he’s dared to do all at once. Those are two halves of the same MBS package, and, as I’ve argued, our job is to help curb his bad impulses and nurture his good ones. But Trump — who still doesn’t even have an ambassador in Saudi Arabia — is AWOL.
Lately, MBS has undertaken a series of ill-considered steps that are hurting him, Saudi Arabia and us. MBS has a few very extreme advisers who keep telling him to follow the “China model” — China asserted itself in the South China Sea, the world complained, China responded to get lost, and eventually the world backed down. So when Canada mildly criticized a Saudi Arabian human rights abuse, MBS went nuclear on Canada and virtually broke off relations. It was an absurd overreaction. Saudi Arabia is not China. It needs friends.
The future stability of the whole Arab Gulf depends on the reform process in Saudi succeeding. But it can’t succeed without significant investments by foreigners and Saudis to create a more vibrant and diverse private sector that can offer decent jobs to all the young Saudis, men and women, coming out of universities at home and abroad.
Trump and his team don’t understand: The U.S. can’t just subcontract order-making in the Middle East to Israel, Russia and Saudi Arabia and write them blank checks.
Being the reality principle, balancer and honest broker has been a U.S. role since the 1970s. If we abdicate it, we’ll just end up creating more crazy poor Middle Easterners.