Why in news?
- US President Donald Trump visited Riyadh on 21st May.
- He addressed leaders from over 50 Muslim countries in Riyadh.
What is the previous stand of US President?
- During the American presidential campaign, Donald Trump was particularly critical of Saudi Arabia.
- He attacked its treatment of gays and women and slammed the Washington establishment for taking “their money”.
- He had also vowed to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. and, upon becoming President, actually issued an executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from coming to the country.
What is recent stand of the president?
- By choosing Saudi Arabia as his first overseas destination as President, Mr. Trump has signalled that his administration will retain the Washington establishment line towards West Asia.
- He called for unity in fighting terrorism and said “Islam is peace”.
- He noted Saudi Arabia’s attempts at “empowering women”.
- He signed a $110 billion arms agreement with the Saudis.
- His administration will re-endorse Saudi Arabia, along with Israel, as a key pillar of America’s West Asia policy and ignore criticism of Riyadh’s human rights violations at home and interventions abroad.
- America will also supply its rich Arab allies advanced weapons: the defence industry at home will obviously benefit from such deals, creating more jobs.
What is the way forward?
- Despite reservations from Saudi Arabia and Israel, his administration went ahead with the Iran nuclear deal.
- The logical next step of the nuclear deal should be bettering ties between Washington and Tehran.
- The major cause of instability in West Asia is not just Iran, but also the cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
- If Mr. Trump wants to be peacemaker and make West Asia a more secure place, he has to reach out to both sides and appeal to them to dial down the tensions that have already spilled into Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
- The Saudi petro- dollar muscle is hard to resist for an American President desperate to create more jobs at home.
- But merely supplying weapons to Riyadh and its allies will not bring peace to West Asia, or help defeat terrorism.
Source: The Hindu
