In Saudi Arabia, Trump tilts toward the Sunni side
President Trump’s speech in Saudi Arabia on Sunday came with a much needed change of tone in his descriptions of Islam’s relations with the West.
A candidate who called for a “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” now, as president, wants to reach out to the Islamic world. In his speech, he called for a partnership with Muslim nations, one “based on shared interests,” to drive out extremism.
Nothing wrong with that, but Trump’s welcome shift in tone only partially obscured a troubling departure on policy. He drew an explicit line between good and evil — and a more implicit line between Saudi Arabia and the Sunni sect of Islam on the one hand, and Iran and the rival Shiite sect on the other.
U.S. support for the Sunni camp was made clear by the fact that Trump made Riyadh his first foreign stop as president, by his willingness to sell the Saudis $110 billion in military equipment, and by his repeated criticisms of Iran during his speech.
Why the United States would want to tilt toward either side in the Sunni- Shiite divide is mystifying. These two sects have been at odds for centuries, with no signs of a detente.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization, is Sunni. The same goes for al- Qaeda, the group founded by Osama bin Laden that brought down the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The bulk of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi citizens. And the Saudi government has long supported an ultra orthodox form of Islam known as Wahhabism, which has been a kind of gateway drug to radical Islam.
To be sure, much of the reason that Sunni extremism dominates the world of terrorism is that it is the much larger of the two predominant sects. But radical Sunnis have been more aggressive than militant Shiites, such as Hezbollah, in attacking the West.
Iran, home to the world’s largest Shiite population, is a nasty theocracy in which ultimate power resides in the hands of an autocratic supreme leader. Yet it does have an elected president who has increasingly come to speak for a population yearning for better ties with Western nations. Indeed, as Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia — where women are still not allowed to drive — Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, was re-elected in a landslide.
President Obama rightly saw Iran as a country worth cultivating, and did so with a deal that rolled back sanctions in return for a suspension of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Obama, in a 2009 speech in Egypt, also cited the human rights abuses and lack of economic opportunity that help make Arab nations a breeding ground for extremism.
Trump was notably silent on those issues Sunday, signaling to Sunni leaders that they wouldn’t be called out for repression. Perhaps he calculates that a policy popular with Israeli leaders (who, like Saudi Arabia, staunchly oppose efforts to engage Iran) is a good way to keep Jews and evangelical Christians within his base.
Whatever the reason, Trump, like Obama, seems destined to learn that one speech in the heart of the Muslim world, no matter how well received, is hardly enough to alter ancient enmities.