Beware Trump’s tricks!

Did you get to watch US President Donald Trump’s Middle East trip? The new US president made his first foreign trip last week to Saudi Arabia. It was a programme oozing with symbolism and packed with superficiality as befits a fully media-focused president.
If you like me are someone who is burdened with concerns over happenings in the world, Turkey’s situation and the future of the Middle East, your pessimism should have increased five-fold after Trump’s trip to Riyadh.

Trump, who came to power on a wave of open Islamophobia, pulled down the sails when business turned to the Saudi regime. I suppose defence contracts have this kind of palliative effect on the human constitution. Trump, who just a few months ago was implementing a shameful ban on Muslims, had cosy snaps taken with Egypt’s coup leader on the one side and Saudi King Salman on the other, signed arms agreements worth billions of dollars and was not even reticent about doing a sword dance. I had no idea what this sword dance affair was about and thanks to Trump my knowledge of social etiquette has expanded. He gave it his all, sword in hand, surrounded by men dressed in the traditional Saudi robe known as the dishdasha. Even if the theatrical side of the business did not greatly interest me, it was odd for a US president’s symbol-ladened trip to have turned into a TV reality show. Let’s move on to the content. I wrote in my last article that the global atmosphere in which we find ourselves has become something of a return match for the liberal democratic order that has held sway since the 90’s. With authoritarian regimes springing up like mushrooms everywhere in the world, liberal democracy is in its death throes. The USA has ceased to be the driving force of the liberal order established in the aftermath of the Cold War; it has ceased to pressurise countries like Turkey in the direction of reform and democracy. We are confronted with a totally new set of rules. You will recall that Obama visited Cairo on his first foreign trip and gave a message to the Islamic world about democracy and reform. The new US president, conversely, said loud and clear from Riyadh that what was important for him was not people, not democracy, but regimes.

We are in trouble.
Similar views have begun to be touted of late in our ruling circles. The following thesis is advanced: ‘The world has turned into a very dangerous place. Our allies are not really friends. We are under threat as a country. In the face of this, we must keep the state strong. So, let us keep the regime on its feet even, if necessary, at the cost of dispensing with individual rights (and human rights).’
I imagine there is no need to say that this view is mistaken from start to finish. The state is for people’s happiness. If people are unhappy and oppressed, what use is a strong regime to me? An even more baleful dimension of Trump’s trip was the demonising of Iran. In his speech with an Islamic theme, the new US president, far from voicing discomfort over the sectarian war in the region, signalled that he would gladly line up with the Saudis against Iran.
Curiously, not a single line in opposition to Trump appeared in our media. But, this sectarian incitement is exceptionally dangerous. Undoubtedly, the Iranian regime has committed a multitude of sins, and intervening in the civil war in Syria is one of these. But, are the Saudis any less sectarian? Are they not supporting another front in the Syrian war?

I hope that Ankara, which is head over heels in love with Trump, has made note of this trip and seen how dangerous a policy the new US president (knowingly or unknowingly) is following in this region. Whatever the cost, Turkey must not be egged on by Trump and the Saudis and get involved in this sectarian war. Something smells bad. It looks like tension will escalate with Iran. The right thing for Turkey is not to get mixed up in this business.