I don’t want to be a total party pooper on Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Vatican. While the premise of the trip bothers me and it reminds me much of what Obama did, there are potentially some good things coming out of this trip as Walid Phares points out:
In the context of fighting and defeating ISIS, I do think a coalition intervention force can be good if we really take the fight to them for a change. Obama had his own Arab coalition and yet ISIS seemed to grow bigger. We must take from them their safe-havens and destroy them. Trump campaigned on this bigly!
Also with respect to Iran, I’m for any coalition that will isolate them and the terrorism they sponsor. But I don’t have high hopes for that. I do like what Trump has said today about Iran, but I wish he’s just tear up that stupid agreement Obama made and be done with it.
I must admit I love to see an American president in Israel meeting with Netanyahu. One big difference between Obama and Trump is that Trump actually likes Israel and eagerly supports them. I appreciate that in an American president.
And I do appreciate that Trump brought up the slaughter of Christians in the Middle East, although I think he could have spent a bit more time on it and not have simply blamed it on “Islamist extremism.” Very Obama-esque.
In any event, his trip will likely be listed as a success for him overall and there’s no doubt that he himself will tout it that way. If he could just get off the two-state solution bandwagon, I’d feel much better about the whole thing.