US President Donald Trump is back home..and the Middle East region is still in its place .. It is not the idea that nothing has happened, but the multi- summit meetings that took place in Riyadh last week, did not yield the results boasted before! Or the goals Saudi Arabia intended to attain. No one can ignore the media campaign success and the public relation propaganda to polish Saudi image, by gathering 55 head of state, or state representatives. But this huge congregation did not reach an agreed upon plan or definite clear decisions or a road map vis a vis any definite issue. The issues that Saudis wanted to market at the summit is to entrench a safety network for the regime, wash their hands from terrorism and to attribute all the horrors of terrorism to the Islamic republic of Iran. Those things have been relatively on track, but only in the Saudi – US calculations, as other nations have their agendas and priorities that do not necessarily overlap with Washington or Riyadh.
Indeed, it was a summit of those in dilemma, both King Salman and President Trump have tremendous problems and unprecedented challenges that put their positions and their countries at risk; though the two leaders are more vulnerable to be ousted before they could spill their risky policies over their respective countries.
King Salman faces a series of major failures and huge defeats on many fronts. The tens of billions of dollars invested in destroying Syria, Yemen, and before that Iraq, have proved futility. And the miscalculations and shortsightedness are backfiring inside Saudi Arabia itself in the form of: culminating crisis in economy, and heightened political divisions; the growing rift among the royal family is difficult to mend. The Saudis paid all their reserves to please Trump with the hope this could buy them time and postpone the looming existential danger of collapse.
Trump, for his part, is not in his better position, he could be impeached and even removed from office; though US as a country is by no account similar to Saudi Arabia. In USA, there are institutions and governmental bodies, and rule of law that would not allow the president to act solely or fully dominate the political scene.
That the US will intensify its efforts to what it says fighting terrorism is not something new, naming Hizbullah and Hamas as terrorist groups, is an already exhausted theme in the American rhetoric. Still, attacking Iran and accusing it of destabilizing the region has been the trend since the advent of the Islamic Republic.
As a result, we are not to expect much from the summit beyond paying a lip-service to put cosmetics on the faces of Salman and Trump. Buying them time would possibly serve on the short range, but the long range results have other dynamics that both Riyadh and Washington have failed to account for
Source: Al-Manar Website
