James Baker has advocated in the NYT for the use of the Bush administration’s response to Tiananmen Square massacre as a precedent for dealing with the Khashoggi incident. Baker is a reasonable man with vast experience, and his views deserve to be taken seriously. However, I think he is missing some of the important nuances of the situation in his analysis.
Baker argues that the US has always backed Saudi Arabia because it is a force for stability in the Middle East. That is a half-truth, just as it would be a half-truth to say that Pakistan is a force for stability in its neighborhood. Yes, the government traditionally has said the right things about terrorism, and has made some genuine efforts to prevent it. On the other hand, the Saudi government has consistently acquiesced to, and on occasion has openly promoted, efforts to spread its radical interpretation of Islam throughout the world. The consequences were inevitable; as I’ve said on many occasions, if you take any given terrorist act and go back far enough, you will almost always find a link to a Saudi-backed madrassa.
That was then, and this is now. Whatever you might think of MBS, you can’t call him a force for stability–he’s a revolutionary. He has flexed the country’s muscles abroad in a way that his predecessors never did, typically with disastrous results. Baker’s argument about “stability” consequently holds little water in today’s environment.
Trump’s objective should be to encourage Saudi liberalization without writing a blank check for the country’s foreign adventures, which are in no way in our best interests. Will that happen? Don’t hold your breath.