The Trump administration has been pushing the sale of nuclear reactors to Saudi Arabia, according to a report from the House Government Oversight Committee, now functional once again since the Democratic takeover of that body. Some pretty good reporting on this from ProPublica suggests, predictably, that Trump’s family would benefit materially from such an arrangement, in the form of lucrative Saudi contracts for the now bankrupt nuclear plant designer Westinghouse, which has garnered Trump friend Tom Barrack as a major investor. ( I believe the consortium is eyeing Jared Kushner’s 666 building for office space.) Barrack wants to be part of a crackpot “Marshall Plan” for the Middle East that will involve building dozens of nuclear reactors in Saudi. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, the same things that have gone wrong on previous occasions when we have moved in this direction. Oh, yes … we have been here before, though perhaps without the craven self-dealing that Trump adds to virtually every initiative. In the 1960s, we were pushing the “atoms for peace” program, and at one point we were working with the British to help Iran (under the Shah) develop nuclear weapons – this according to longtime Labor party leader the late Tony Benn. In the late 1980s, George H.W. Bush was planning to send nuclear scientists over to Iraq for talks with Saddam Hussein’s government. And we have, of course, looked the other way with regard to Israel’s nuclear program, which remains unacknowledged, even though it continues to affect regional politics.
Now, there are historical and institutional reasons why our relationship with Saudi Arabia is unlikely to go south in a way similar to our little imperial dance with Iraq or Iran. But it’s hard to predict what will happen to any despotic regime. I’m sure back in the 1960s U.S. policymakers thought Iran would remain within the fold for the long term. My sense is that on this issue, like other foreign policy issues, Trump is being driven around like a little toy car by his advisors. People like Bolton, Pompeo, and Elliott Abrams work their strategies through people like Trump, who has little or no interest in international politics and is really only focused on what is best for him, his children, his son in law, his cronies. In a place like Saudi, they can all get what they want even if their goals are divergent from one another.
We live in dangerous times, to be sure. There’s nothing more dangerous than a useful idiot.
luv u,
jp
What’s ironic is that these pundits should be surprised and appalled by such behavior. After all, the Saudis have been killing people by the thousand in Yemen. It appears that Yemeni children’s biggest mistake may be that they aren’t members of the Washington Post editorial board. And if memory serves, they were well represented in the 9/11/2001 attacks … nearly as many hijackers as there were assassins sent to kill Khashoggi. I’m surprised that the Saudis considered this such heavy lifting. Nevertheless, all of the gray-headed shills who were running around trumpeting the virtues of “MBS” will now have to find some way of reconciling themselves to the ugly truth: their hero is a murderous despot.
Talk about ungrateful. I heard a story this week on NPR about a loan the government of Cambodia owes to the United States, in the amount of about $500 million. There were a couple of remarkable points about this story. For one, the piece actually acknowledges that some scholars think the massive bombing of Cambodia may have contributed to the rise to power of the Khmer Rouge. That’s a pretty big step forward for mainstream media, which usually follows the line that Cambodia was a peaceful, happy country before the arrival of Pol Pot. They also mention the bombing itself – another practical miracle. What they leave out is that the loan in question was made to a coup regime installed with the full support of the United States. Slight omission there, right?