Washington, July 17: President Donald Trump hosted a pair of Arab Gulf leaders at the White House as violence between Israel and Syria renewed doubts about his pledge to impose peace on the Middle East.
Trump held a meeting in the Oval Office with Bahrain’s crown prince and dined privately with Qatar’s prime minister on Wednesday.
The Republican president has lavished attention on the Gulf, a wealthy region where members of his family have extensive business relationships. He has already visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on the first foreign policy trip of his second term.
With little progress to share on the region’s most intractable problems, including the war in Gaza, Trump was more focused Wednesday on promoting diplomatic ties as a vehicle for economic growth.
“Anything they needed, we helped them,” Trump said in the Oval Office while meeting with Bahrain Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. “And anything we needed, they helped us.”
Bahrain is a longtime ally that hosts the US Fifth Fleet, which operates in the Middle East.
Like other Arab leaders, Al Khalifa was eager to highlight the lucrative potential of diplomatic ties with the US, including USD 17 billion of investments.
“And this is real,” he said. “It’s real money. These aren’t fake deals.”
According to the White House, the agreements include purchasing American airplanes, jet engines and computer servers. More investments could be made in aluminium production and artificial intelligence.
Bahrain’s king, the crown prince’s father, is expected to visit Washington before the end of the year. An important part of the relationship will be an agreement, signed on Wednesday, to advance cooperation on civilian nuclear energy.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the prime minister of Qatar and a member of the country’s ruling family, was at the White House for a private dinner with Trump on Wednesday evening.
Trump visited Qatar during his trip to the region, marvelling at its palaces and stopping at the Al Udeid Air Base, a key US military facility.
The base was targeted by Iran after the US bombed the country’s nuclear facilities. One ballistic missile made impact, while others were intercepted.
Trump wants to use a luxurious Boeing 747 donated by Qatar as his Air Force One because he’s tired of waiting for Boeing to finish new planes. However, the arrangement has stirred concerns about security and the ethics of accepting a gift from a foreign government.
Aaron David Miller, who served as an adviser on Middle East issues to Democratic and Republican administrations, said “the Gulf represents everything that Trump believes is right about the Middle East”.
“It’s rich, it’s stable, it’s populated by authoritarians with whom the president feels very comfortable,” he said.
The fighting in Syria began with clashes between Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze factions in the country’s south. Government forces intervened, raising alarms in Israel, where the Druze are a politically influential religious minority.
On Wednesday, Israel launched strikes in the Syrian capital of Damascus. A ceasefire was later announced, but it was unclear if it would hold.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in the Oval Office for Trump’s meeting with the crown prince of Bahrain, said the fighting was the result of “an unfortunate situation and a misunderstanding.” He said “we think we’re on our way to a real de-escalation” that would allow Syria to “get back on track” to rebuilding after years of civil war.
Despite an international outcry over its punishing military operations in Gaza, Israel has successfully weakened its enemies around the region, including Hezbollah and Iran.
“There’s a growing concern that Israel unleashed…has been a bigger sense of unpredictability,” Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said.
He also warned that “there’s still no game plan to deal with the loose ends of Iran’s nuclear programme and its other activities in the region”, such as support for the Houthis.
