Purge Isil, Trump tells Saudis
President will soften tone after fiery election rhetoric to urge Arab leaders to join US in driving out terrorism
DONALD TRUMP will today urge Muslim leaders to “drive out the terrorists from your places of worship” in a major speech in Saudi Arabia as he tries to win allies for the defeat of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
The US President will try to persuade a summit of heads of state from Muslim countries that he is not opposed to their religion, despite being widely accused of stoking Islamophobia during his election campaign.
Today’s speech is the centrepiece of Mr Trump’s state visit to the kingdom, where he hopes to rekindle a friendship with the country while pushing regional leaders to play a bigger role in combating Islamist terrorism.
Mr Trump last night said he had had a “tremendous” start to his first foreign trip after the announcement of £268billion in business deals, including a massive arms package to the kingdom. The two countries are also discussing ways of reining in Iranian ambitions in the Gulf.
DONALD TRUMP is today expected to use the biggest speech of his first overseas presidential visit to try to rally the Muslim world to join America in a “battle between good and evil” against Islamist extremism.
The new US president’s keenly awaited address in Saudi Arabia will urge Arab leaders to “drive out the terrorists from your places of worship”, according to leaked early drafts.
Mr Trump will use the symbolism of his visit to the kingdom to try to persuade the Islamic world he is not against it, despite an election campaign in which he disparaged Muslims and proposed banning them from America.
The White House also hopes the royal pageantry of the Saudi visit will detract from the continuing storm at home over Mr Trump’s election cam- paign’s contacts with the Kremlin.
Mr Trump touched down only hours after it was reported he had told Russian officials in the Oval Office that James Comey, the FBI director he recently sacked, was a “crazy nut job” and firing him had relieved “great pressure”. Mr Comey had been investigating any collusion between Russia and anyone connected to the Trump campaign during last year’s election.
It was reported on Friday that a White House official had been identified as a “significant person of interest” in the investigation.
Drumming up support from Muslim nations is key for Mr Trump’s ambition of eradicating Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the threat from extremist Islamist ideology. His administration also wants the region to take on a greater role for security rather than relying on US protection.
His keynote speech to be delivered at a summit of Muslim heads of state has reportedly been written by his aide Stephen Miller, who was the architect of the controversial immigration ban.
Early versions suggest he will steer clear of mentions of human rights or democracy, saying he is “not here to lecture”, but to “offer partnership in building a better future for us all”.
The president is expected to say: “This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects or different civilisations. This is a battle between those who seek to obliterate human life and those who seek to protect it.
“This is a battle between good and evil.” His speech will be scrutinised across the Muslim world, where his election campaign rhetoric caused outcry. Dr Mohammed Al-Issa, of the Saudibased Muslim World League, said he believed Mr Trump had “clarified” his earlier remarks about Islam. “He means religious extremism. We are all against religious extremism with him.”
Mr Trump’s Riyadh visit is the first leg of an ambitious nine-day international debut that will see him stop in Israel, the Vatican, Belgium and Italy. He received a lavish welcome and was met on the tarmac by King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, before holding talks with the monarch and crown princes.
The reception contrasted with the cooler welcome given to his predecessor. The kingdom and its neighbouring Gulf monarchies are looking for a renewed tough line on Saudi Arabia’s main regional rival, Iran, after complaining Barack Obama was too conciliatory.
The visit was accompanied by the announcement of $350bn (£268bn) in business deals, including a $110bn deal for Saudi Arabia to buy American weapons and military equipment.
Those of you awaiting the end of Donald Trump’s reign should not hold your breath. The stories flying out of Washington at warp speed over the past week – the latest being that former FBI director James Comey has agreed to testify before Congress, and that the president bragged to Russian officials about firing him – have been titillating fodder for commentators who brand Trump an irresponsible man-baby. They will no doubt also cast a cloud over his first major foreign trip. But they are not enough to inflict a fatal wound.
Appointing Robert Mueller to independently oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into possible coordination between the Russian government and Trump’s campaign is the first step to ending this Sisyphean election cycle, but it is only one step. We should expect the investigation itself to be quite long; Mueller is not a man to be rushed into hasty decisions, and investigations of this magnitude have typically been measured in years, not months.
But while this scandal might be the size of Watergate, I expect it to take the shape of Iran-Contra. The massive blast radius of Watergate often clouds the fact that it was a set of crimes carried out by breathtakingly stupid, arrogant and unlucky men. The purported aims were the same (stealing an election), and the president may have engaged in obstruction of justice; for now, that is where the comparisons end.
Iran-Contra was a more nuanced affair, and probably a better guide to how this investigation will play out. For those unfamiliar with the scandal, senior members of Ronald Reagan’s administration facilitated the illegal sale of arms to Iran to ensure the release of hostages in Lebanon (contrary to government policy), with the secondary aim of using the funds from those sales to illegally prop up the anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua. There was never definitive proof that the president authorised this diversion of funds, and while over a dozen other members of the administration were indicted, only some were found guilty and none served jail time. President Reagan was never impeached, and his approval ratings at the height of the scandal never dipped below 46 per cent.
To Reagan’s base, the illegality of the arms deal and transfer of cash was outweighed by two worthy goals: the return of American hostages and the fight against communism. But the whole affair was sufficiently convoluted as to give claims of ignorance a ring of authenticity, and to give voters a headache. Any scandal that can only be explained with diagrams is unlikely to capture the popular imagination. Absent hard physical evidence (such as recordings of conversations), this investigation will probably be painful and costly, distract from the president’s agenda, and produce embarrassing headlines – but it will not result in impeachment or conviction, or diminished support in the president’s base.
The caveat is, of course, the president’s mouth. The major known unknown of Trump’s time in office is what will tumble out of it, or onto his Twitter account, every morning. Up to this point, he has demonstrated the impulse control of a slavering labrador, and in this environment that is dangerous. Interfering with any of the investigations now under way, or attacking those leading them, could prove his undoing. Impeachment is a political process, requiring a simple majority in the House to impeach, and a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict. Republicans in both houses are understandably reluctant to prosecute a man who remains popular in their constituencies – but if his inability to keep his mouth shut convinces those voters that maybe he is trying to cover something up, that calculus could quickly change.
Those horrified by the elevation of this man to the highest elected office in the land must be comforted by the prospect of impeachment. It must be tempting to allow yourself to believe that, maybe, just this once, Trump has gone too far and is due for a mighty fall. History would suggest that you place your faith elsewhere.
This investigation will deliver no quick answers, and almost certainly stretch beyond the mid-term elections in 2018. If it turns up nothing more than is already known, it will not finish Trump. And even if it digs up further evidence implicating his aides, there’s a strong chance he himself would survive it. His enemies must look instead to old-fashioned electoral politics. That, in the end, is the only sure way to curtail his power.