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.
