This week, the White House released a bizarre screed, apparently authored by US President Donald Trump entitled, “Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia” (read his full statement below). As Trump statements go, this was one of the most incoherent proclamations made to date. In it, the President rambles with the usual prefabricated talking points on the evils of Iran, Assad, Hezbollah, while exonerating the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for any and all misdeeds and international war crimes, whilst crooning the virtues of how US arms sales abroad create jobs at home. It’s raffish even by Trump standards, and that’s saying a lot. The worst part about this statement is the lack of push-back from his sworn opposition in Congress and the ‘free press.’ But there are definite reasons for their relative laissez faire reaction. It turns out that foreign meddling and influence in US affairs is fine, so long as those doing it are lining the right pockets.
Because this address is coming at a pivotal time in US and Middle East relations, it would behoove all parties to apply a thorough cross-examination to the President’s catalogue of errors and disinformation. Evidently, the western media is not up to the task, so we’ve decided to weigh-in to inspect Trump’s errant soliloquy point by point.
CAVEAT: Perhaps the most frustrating part of this misadventure is that the length of the critique exceeds that of the offending article. Alas, we hope readers will find the following analysis useful.
Below we rebut each of Trump’s 12 erroneous claims:
FALSE: Iran is responsible for Saudi Arabia’s three & a half year-long illegal war of aggression against Yemen
REALITY: In March 2015, Yemen was viciously attacked a coalition of gulf monarchies led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, armed and supported militarily and diplomatically by the US and UK. By all standards of international law, this is an illegal war of aggression which has already killed tens of thousands of innocent Yemenis.
FALSE: “On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave.”
REALITY: Iran is not in Yemen. This statement is ludicrous. What’s even more amazing though is that no Democrat possesses the intellectual or political wherewithal to refute it.
FALSE: Trump claims that the Iranian government has stated “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
REALITY: In the past, there have been some anti-American protests in Iran (and understandably so considering the last 70 years of US lording over Iran) where crowds have demonstrated with these type of expletives, but the Iranian government has not, nor did its previous President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad say such things in 2007.
FALSE: “Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East.”
REALITY: If one is to read through this recycled neoconservative trope, they will find it’s referring to the 1983 truck bombing of an US Marine on October 23, 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon, during the Lebanese Civil War, killing 241 soldiers. Despite the repeated proclamations by Neoconservatives, FOX, CNN and Israel, there is no proof the Iranian government mounted the attack. Furthermore, even if a link could be made between the two, the reality is the US was a party to the war in Lebanon on the side of Israel, while concurrently backing Saddam Hussein in a brutal eight year war against Iran at that time – which would mean the entire Middle East was an active war theater. In an ideal world, all of this would be vital context for White House speech writers, but sadly, the President’s foreign policy team seems to lack any real grasp of events in this regard. Moreover, Iran has fought ISIS and al Qaeda in both Syria and Iraq, and so by taking his ill-informed stance, Trump is effectively aligning himself with ISIS and al Qaeda.
FALSE: Iran is “trying to destabilize Iraq’s fragile attempt at democracy.”
REALITY: The assistance provided by Iran was decisive in defeating ISIS. Just ask any Iraqi. By taking this position, Trump is effectively siding with ISIS and the continued destablization of Iraq through punitive sanctions against its most important trading partner and neighbor, Iran.
FALSE: Syrian President Bashar al Assad “has killed millions of his own citizens.”
REALITY: Trump’s fantastic projections here are based on the same fraudulent methodology applied by the entire western mainstream media and body politic since 2011. Much of the early Syria casualty figures provided to international agencies were ad hoc and unverified, provided by western-based and western financed pseudo NGOs like the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The current figure circulating of “500,000 dead Syrians” is not based on any veritable data, and does not discriminate between dead Syrian Army, Syrian Police, Syrian Militia, human shields, Syrian civilians killed by terrorist shelling and bombs, and most notably: enemy combatants including militants, terrorists, and tens of thousands of foreign mercenary fighters imported into the conflict since 2012. If properly and objectively parsed, data will likely reveal Syrian civilian casualties to be between 150,000 to 200,000, and from those a large percentage will have been killed by the “rebel” terrorist operations against Syrian civilians, in Aleppo, Damascus etc. Not to mention the 10,000 plus Syrians killed by Washington’s reckless bombing of Raqqa. By any real metric, Trump’s statement is pure fabrication.
FALSE: Hezbollah is “propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria.”
REALITY: Hezbollah are fighting ISIS and Al Qaeda, so by taking this position, Trump has sided with ISIS and al Qaeda.
FALSE: “It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!”
REALITY: The US have already procured billions of dollars in arms for al Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria, much of it paid for by Saudi Arabia.
INCOHERENT: “They [Saudi Arabia] have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran.”
REALITY: US and Iran are not in a military war with each other, but the US has waged a renewed, unprovoked economic war on Iran this year. However, both Israel and Saudi Arabia are waging direct war against Iran, its allies and Shia Muslims in the Middle East. By siding with Saudi and Israel in this way, Trump is advancing a sectarian agenda for the region which will result in more bloodshed and instability.
RIDICULOUS: “Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism.”
REALITY: Saudi Arabia, like Qatar and other gulf monarchies, have spent billions of dollars backing Radical Islamic Terrorism in Syria, as well as deploying radical Wahabbi clerics to Mosques around the world which has been essential in the continuous recruitment of Mujahedeen Islamist fighters and terrorists since 1979.
IDIOTIC: On the charge that Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi: “… maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!”
REALITY: Among all the patently stupid, nonsensical and fanciful projections in Trump’s remarks, this one shows this President has close to zero political aptitude in the field of international relations. In a normal political situation, the press would pan this speech so viciously that the President’s chief of staff would be forced to fire the speech writer or communications director. But as we’ll demonstrate below, this is not an independent White House.
MORALLY BANKRUPT: Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend $110 billion with Uncle Sam Inc. to “purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors.”
REALITY: This is the height of corruption, placing arms sales above victims of war. If the said deals goes through, expect Saudi Arabia to use those weapons to continue attacking Yemenis and facilitate an illegal occupation of parts of Yemen.
What’s more amazing than Trump’s fantasy projections however, if the complete impotence of the Democratic opposition to pull him up on the string lies and disinformation contained in this statement. In football terms, this would be a ‘open goal’ for the opposition, as each of his false statements carries grave foreign policy implications with it. The fact that Congressional Democrats including Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein, and also ‘independent’ Bernie Sanders – are all silent on this issue decisively proves that both the Executive Branch, the Congressional Republicans and Democrats, all controlled by whip-line imposed by two foreign lobbies who share a pronounced anti-Iranian policy: Israel and Saudi Arabia. For this same reason, even supposedly ‘anti-Trump’ media outlets like CNN – who will routinely spend days on end deconstructing flippant tweet by Trump – will not be ‘fact checking’ Trump’s speech on this occasion for the simple reason that by doing do they would expose their own continuously slanted, limp non-reporting of real events in the Middle East, especially in relation to Israel. CNN’s own direct links to the Israeli Lobby, the Pentagon and the CIA ensure that there will be no real critique of this debacle of statement by Trump. In this way, they are preserving the binary narrative required by both the US establishment and the Israeli lobby:
Israel = Good
Iran = Bad
Saudi Arabia = American Jobs Creator, Necessary Evil
If one was to make an educated guess, it’s very likely that the following statement was drafted by either the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), either of whom would be relying on a White House operating under an extreme level of ignorance when it comes to the real state of affairs in Iran, Syria, and most of all, Yemen.
Although it may be too early to call, but this is perhaps the stupidest Presidential foreign policy statement in the history of the United States of America. It is simply breathtaking. A full transcript of the President’s statement here:
The world is a very dangerous place!
The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq’s fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” Iran is considered “the world’s leading sponsor of terror.”
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism.
After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries – and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States!
The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone. Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder. After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body.
Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an “enemy of the state” and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that – this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!
That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!
I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction – and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America. After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels – so important for the world. As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!
END
From this, one can only conclude that after two years in office, President Trump has still not managed to develop any independent thoughts or views about Middle East other than those imparted on him by the Netanyahu and the Israeli Lobby, Trump’s ultra-Zionist son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the disgraced bevy of Neocons who seem to have infested his administration. Conversely, Democrats really don’t mind meddling, collusion or interference by a foreign government in US state affairs, providing the meddler is Israel.
Hence, one should not expect any thoughtful or fair policy decisions made in the near-term by this White House. Far from ‘America First!’, this speech screams loud and clear: Israel First!
READ MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump Files
SUPPORT 21WIRE – SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV