AFTER receiving the royal treatment and loving every moment of the opulent receptions, US President Donald Trump on Friday (May 16) concluded a three-nation tour of the Persian Gulf that resulted, among other things, in announcements of business deals with the wealthy states in the oil-rich region that are expected to pump money into the American economy.
Indeed, from the moment he got off Air Force One, warmly greeting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump seemed to be focused on securing deals worth hundreds of billions of dollars to the business executives he brought with him, including a large order from Qatar for Boeing passenger jets worth US$96 billion.
Trump said the total investments from the three nations he visited could reach as high as US$4 trillion, in sectors from tech to defence, including a US$142 billion deal to provide state-of-the-art fighting equipment and services from over a dozen US defence firms.
But while the decades of American policy in the Middle East were characterised by the use of American military might to remake the Middle East, Trump has insisted that under his leadership US engagement in the region, unlike in Iraq and Afghanistan, would be based on strengthening economic and diplomatic ties, and not on efforts of regime change and nation-building.
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“In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built,” Trump said on May 13 during an address at an investment conference in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
“And the interventionists were intervening in complex societies they did not even understand,” the president stressed, urging the people of the region to chart “your own destinies in your own way”.
So instead of launching military interventions to promote dead-end ideological crusades, Trump believes that concluding business deals and refraining from lecturing countries in the region on how to run their affairs, are more effective ways to advance US interests in the region. Or to paraphrase an old maxim – make money, not war.
Reflecting the kind of pragmatism that he said would characterise his approach to the Middle East, Trump won praise in the region after meeting with Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, on May 14.
That extraordinary meeting reversed longstanding US policies towards the country and al-Sharaa. A former terrorist who once led a branch of Al-Qaeda, al-Sharaa came to power as the head of the rebel alliance that ousted the former dictator Bashar al-Assad in December.
Trump announced that he would lift US sanctions on Syria, which would offer a significant economic boost to al-Sharaa as he tries to reconstruct a country shattered by years of civil war. His unexpected announcement drew enthusiastic applause from the audience in the conference in Riyadh.
Yet notwithstanding this gesture, the political realities of the Middle East may make it difficult to fulfil Trump’s grand vision of peace and prosperity in the region when one considers the national, ethnic and sectarian problems that have ignited so many political upheavals and several wars there.
In fact, Trump has threatened to take economic and military action against Iran if it does not agree to give up its ambition of becoming a nuclear military power. But then the president also decided to open talks with the Iranians that could lead to a diplomatic resolution of the nuclear issue.
Trump pointed to progress in Iran talks during his trip, bringing up the nuclear negotiations with Iran on several occasions. On May 13 in Saudi Arabia, he said he was offering Tehran “a much better path towards a far better and more hopeful future”, while insisting the US would not allow Tehran to develop a nuclear weapon.
And after a senior Iranian official spoke in an interview with NBC News about the prospect of “better relations” with the US, Trump shared the comments on his social media page on May 15. Iranian commentators suggested that as a sign that the president was willing to abandon the tough position of ending Iran’s nuclear programme.
Qatar played the role of intermediary between the US and Iran in reaching an agreement. And in remarks on May 15, Trump also praised Qatar and said that Iran was “very lucky” to have such an ally. Qatar also played a middleman role when it came to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, assisting the US in its efforts to reach a ceasefire there and to secure the release of the remaining hostages that Hamas is still holding.
There has been a lot of talk of late about America’s relationship with its regional ally Israel, with the Israelis feeling snubbed when Trump decided not to visit their country during his trip.
It also seemed that Israel was sidelined diplomatically during the trip. Trump’s meeting with the new Syrian leader that was prepared by Saudi Arabia and Turkey came as a surprise to the Israeli government, which was not notified about it in advance.
Similarly, the reports about a possible American nuclear deal with Iran worry the Israelis, who had hoped that Trump would give them a green light to attack Iran’s nuclear sites. He did not and, instead, listened to the advice of the Saudis and the other Gulf states who are concerned that a war with Iran would destabilise their countries and the entire region.
