Don't believe Donald Trump; we'll be just fine without Saudi Arabia: Today's talker 'A less friendly relationship with Saudi Arabia won't harm U.S. interests in the Middle East. It's time to stop turning a blind eye to the worst excesses of the Saudi leadership.'

USA TODAY

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told President Donald Trump on Thursday that the U.S. needs to give the Saudis “a few more days” to investigate the fate of Jamal Khashoggi.

We may be better off without Saudi Arabia

With the presumed killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, opinion in Washington appears to be turning decisively against longtime ally Saudi Arabia. Think tanks are returning Saudi money, lobbying firms are rejecting Saudi business, and Congress is actively considering sanctions on Saudi leaders.

The only holdout is President Donald Trump himself, who accepted King Salman’s denials, dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Riyadh, and parroted back the idea that Khashoggi could have been murdered by rogue killers. That "rogue killers" are rarely found hanging out in official consulates appears not to have crossed the president's mind.

Trump's defense of Saudi Arabia focused on arms sales and U.S. jobs. But his administration has been strongly supportive of Saudi Arabia in general, arguing that it is vital to U.S. energy security and regional interests.

Four decades ago, oil and security were indeed good reasons to maintain a strong partnership with Saudi Arabia. That is no longer the case.

Our view: Can Donald Trump handle the truth about Jamal Khashoggi?

Other views: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia rejects any attempts to undermine it

For starters, U.S. and Saudi interests in the Middle East are diverging. Saudi Arabia wants to roll back Iran and undermine democratic gains in nearby states. The Saudi-led war in Yemen has created a humanitarian crisis and produced the worst famine in years.

Whether it is arming rebels in Syria, initiating a blockade of Qatar or kidnapping the prime minister of Lebanon, Saudi foreign policy is increasingly a destabilizing force in the region. Minimizing our ties to Saudi Arabia certainly won’t worsen our regional interests. It could even improve things.

Global oil markets, meanwhile, have changed a lot since President Jimmy Carter argued in 1980 that the United States needed to defend the Middle East to protect the flow of oil. It's true that Saudi Arabia remains a major global oil producer, but changes in the world market mean that America today is far less reliant on Middle Eastern energy.

To keep the oil flowing, Saudi Arabia needs to be stable. It does not need to be a U.S. ally.

Even Trump's new justification — that Saudi arms sales are vital to the U.S. economy — is wrong. Arms sales figures are often inflated and are rarely as lucrative as they sound. In fact, experts believe that the purported $110 billion of Saudi Arms sales are in reality worth only about $28 billion. More important, they are responsible for only a small proportion of the overall U.S. defense industry.

Even as the Saudi government seeks to portray an image of reform, it has become increasingly repressive. Dissidents have been kidnapped abroad and returned to Riyadh. Human rights activists have been jailed.

Unlike past decades, however, U.S. leaders today don't have to tolerate this behavior. A less friendly relationship with Saudi Arabia won't harm U.S. interests in the Middle East. It's time to stop turning a blind eye to the worst excesses of the Saudi leadership.

Emma Ashford is a research fellow at the Cato Institute. You can follow her on Twitter: @EmmaMAshford.

What our readers are saying

Brutal dictators love President Donald Trump because he doesn’t have the courage to stand up to them. There's a pattern developing here.

— Ron Patrick

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is not in Saudi Arabia to solve any mystery. He's probably there to talk strategy on how to put the journalist's fate in the rearview mirror and forgotten. I find it hard to give credence to any theory that Jamal Khashoggi was accidentally killed.

— Gene Seiler

Trump came right out and said during his "60 Minutes" interview with Lesley Stahl that he won't let what happened to Khashoggi get in the way of the arms deal. We all know how Trump feels about journalists.

— Leslie Cooper

America's foreign policy is in shambles. Our allies laugh at the person in charge. Meanwhile, our most autocratic adversaries realize Trump can be played through fawning praise, and the threat of financial punishment or the promise of financial reward.

America's moral compass has never been true North, but under this president it resembles a board game spinner.

— Rich Barnes

What others are saying

Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post: "The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events. More important, we need to provide a platform for Arab voices. We suffer from poverty, mismanagement and poor education. Through the creation of an independent international forum, isolated from the influence of nationalist governments spreading hate through propaganda, ordinary people in the Arab world would be able to address the structural problems their societies face."

Karen Elliott House, The Wall Street Journal: "Kidnapping critics and returning them to Saudi Arabia isn’t new for this regime, though previously such incidents got little publicity because no one died. Perhaps the crown prince thought he could again escape any consequences. After all, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has poisoned dissidents in London; China’s Xi Jinping runs an archipelago of re-education camps; and Turkey’s increasingly despotic Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who is leveling the charges at the Saudis — has jailed thousands with little or no international consequence. Perhaps the world will soon forget a political murder."

USA TODAY, editorial: "Trump has already lapsed into his unfortunate, recurring role as an apologist for brutal leaders who draw his favor. ... The worry is that Trump is playing for time, perhaps hoping the nation's attention will wane as the U.S. midterm elections approach. He promises 'severe punishment' if Riyadh is guilty but is quickly taking potential leverage off the table, including the sale of U.S. arms and munitions the kingdom desperately relies upon to continue its bloody war of attrition in Yemen that's killing thousands of civilians."

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