Trump charts a standard course
David Shariatmadari,
The Guardian: “Stephen Miller, one of the architects of President Trump’s attempted Muslim ban (was) the principal author of a speech, delivered in Riyadh, in which Trump said he wanted to ‘deliver a message of friendship and hope and love.’ ...Trump even shied away from the phrase he blasted Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for avoiding: ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ ... With its ship’s wheel jerked to and fro in opposite directions, the USS Foreign Policy ends up charting a fairly standard course. We saw that in North Korea: Trump’s bluster dissipated to reveal a familiar plan. The U.S. Embassy probably won’t move to Jerusalem. ... Talk of repudiating Saudi Arabia has likewise dissolved into arms deals and political cooperation.”
Haroon Moghul, Haaretz: “Trump is president of the United States, not Saudi Arabia. Why did he have to go to Riyadh, the kingdom’s capital, to reset relationships with Muslims, when there are plenty Muslim citizens of the country that elected him. Could he not go to an American mosque? Visit an Islamic school? ... When the Muslim ban was first proposed, most of these leaders (now gathered in Saudi Arabia) were pin-drop silent. It was ordinary Americans who rushed to the airport, showing more care and concern for Syrian refugees, for immigrants, for people a little different than themselves, than the so-called Muslim world.”
Jennifer Rubin, The
Washington Post: “It is all well and good to explain we have shared ‘interests’ — with regard to fighting Iran and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, most clearly. To say we have shared ‘values’ with Saudi Arabia, however, is daft, and shows how deficient is Trump’s understanding of American values and their role in American foreign policy. In so starkly diminishing the importance of human rights, he foolishly sacrificed our moral authority. ... When after the speech Trump attempted to scold Iran for its human rights policy, the flaw in this approach was evident. For both Iran and Saudi Arabia, we are not ‘tell(ing) other people how to live’ but standing up for universal human rights. ... And we give a flawed message that modernization and full inclusion in the community of nations are possible without basic rights for women, religious minorities, et al.”