Keeping track of criticism of President Trump can be dizzying. This week, one is that he is too accommodating of America’s Muslim allies.
Trump’s weekend visit to Saudi Arabia has drawn fire from critics in politics and the press who warn, in the words of The Washington Post, that he “shouldn’t get too cozy” with the petrostate’s royal family. Trump’s inveighing against Islamic extremism while he stood on Saudi soil was inappropriate, these critics argue, because the Saudi’s support Wahhabism, the philosophy behind much terrorism.
We’d argue, on the contrary, that if Saudi-backed Wahhabism is at the heart of today’s terrorism problems, then the Saudi capital seems the perfect place in which to proclaim it.
Trump’s decision to make Saudi Arabia his first overseas trip as president also upset those who saw it as a sign of accepting the kingdom’s human rights abuses, illiberal ways and severe restrictions on women. This is simplistic. Washington has always found it necessary to work with unpleasant regimes in order to advance strategic goals.
Think of FDR, all smiles with Stalin. Or, less long ago, Nixon engaging with China as a Cold War maneuver. Every administration since then has continued to work with China for trade and diplomatic ends, even in the face of its egregious human rights abuses.
Cavorting with bad actors is uncomfortable but often necessary in international relations. Effective geopolitics does not allow for purity tests, and it does not allow us to deal only with those who share our values.
Trump made clear this view in Riyadh, when he said, “We must seek partners, not perfection.”
It’s also properly symbolic that Trump went to Saudi Arabia before any other country because perhaps nowhere in the world so desperately needed a clear break from the policies of former President Barack Obama. Trump is scrapping Obama’s dangerous Middle East policies, which fancifully sought a partnership with Iran, displacing our traditional and better alliances with Saudi Arabia and, of course, Israel. Demonstrating a return to America’s traditional alliances was the right thing to do, and visiting Saudi Arabia and then, unprecedentedly, flying directly to Israel, was the right thing to do.
Engagement with unsavory nations has a secondary purpose, or hope, which is to make our partners better. Saudi Arabia has more ability than any of our allies or potential allies to clamp down on extremist ideologies in the Muslim world. Since 9/11, even if inconsistently, it has been a partner in American anti-terrorism efforts.
If Trump accepts the good faith of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz in founding the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology and proceeds to hold the monarch to his pledges, there could be a major positive effect in tamping down terrorism and extremism.
This partnership will also, one hopes, bring some measure of reform in Saudi Arabia, just as our trade and engagement with China spurred some liberalization there.
Those who argue, or suggest, that we must shun nations until they join the Enlightenment are advocating, whether they know it or not, for a clash of civilizations. Their preconditions would pit the West against the rest.
The alternative, engaging and even partnering with those who don’t see the truths we see or value human dignity as we do, brings about something far more winnable: a clash not between civilizations but between civilization and barbarity.
To battle the barbarians of ISIS and al Qaeda and the terror-sponsoring regional hegemonist Iran, we need partners. Those allies will, of course, include countries we wish were more democratic and enlightened.
