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News > World

US and Saudi Arabia, the Imperial Alliance That Creates Terrorism, Vows to ‘Fight’ It

  • U.S. President Donald Trump dances with a sword as he arrives to a welcome ceremony by Saudi Arabia's King Salman.

    U.S. President Donald Trump dances with a sword as he arrives to a welcome ceremony by Saudi Arabia's King Salman. | Photo: Reuters

Published 21 May 2017
Opinion

Trump called on U.S.-backed despots in the Middle East to pick up the fight against terrorism, while shoring up fears against Iran.

Just one day after the United States signed off an exorbitant arms deal to Saudi Arabia — continuing in the decades-long imperial alliance between Riyadh and Washington — U.S. President Donald Trump spewed diatribes against “terrorism” in the Middle East, calling on U.S.-backed despots of the region to pick up the fight, while shoring up fears against the “threat” of Iran.

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"America is prepared to stand with you in pursuit of shared interests and common security. But nations of the Middle East cannot wait for American power to crush this enemy for them," Trump told the leaders of 55 countries in the region that represent more than a billion people.

"Drive them out! Drive them out of your places of worship. Drive them out of your communities. Drive them out of your holy land and drive them out of this earth," he added.

With both the United States and Saudi Arabia hostile to Iran, Trump’s meeting in the kingdom signaled to many as a prelude to openly declaring war against Iran, as the nation’s two leaders fear-mongered about the threat of “terrorism” there.

"For decades, Iran has fed the flames of sectarian conflict and terror," declared Trump, as he stood on the soil of the regime he and his predecessors have funded and armed to commit atrocities in Yemen, Iraq and beyond.

Saudi King Salman also weighed in, saying, "Our responsibility before God and our people and the whole world is to stand united to fight the forces of evil and extremism wherever they are ... The Iranian regime represents the tip of the spear of global terrorism."

During the meeting, he praised other autocrats the United States is aligned with, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who Trump called a "fantastic guy” last year on the campaign trail, as well as Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.

Despite the U.S. being the largest arms dealer in the world, sponsoring and bankrolling terrorism in nearly every part of the world including Saudi Arabia, the leaders of the two nations also announced the formation of the newly created Terrorist Financing Targeting Center, TFTC. The U.S. Treasury described the initiative as a "collaborative approach to confronting new and evolving threats arising from terrorist financing."

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Saudi Arabia is both a hotbed, and exporter of, the Wahhabi Salafi ideology that fuels groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic state group.

Saturday’s arms deal to Saudi Arabia came despite the Kingdom-led, Western-backed coalition currently committing atrocities and war crimes in Yemen, that has seen thousands of Yemenis killed, on the brink of starvation, and facing the threat of cholera and other infectious diseases.

While the liberal establishment in the United States criticized Trump’s speech, many, like former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, who was a part of the Obama administration, remained mum when former President Barack Obama offered a record US$115 billion in arms weapon, military equipment and training to Saudi Arabia just last September.

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