“Escape to the front” is one of the tactical plans known in war, politics, and economy. Tactics are flexible plans to achieve a partial goal that responds to the moment’s data and necessities. Tactics are also a kind of maneuver to improve one’s own position, whether it’s executed by a state, a government, or a president. Tactics are considered a successful method when it serves the strategy, which is a comprehensive plan to reach the final goals of deliberate and specific goals that target the future’s aspirations.
Donald Trump, in his visit to the region, is escaping to the front from the problems and complexities of US politics and internal problems that have surrounded him. He has come in danger after he sacked FBI director James Comey when he was close to implicating the US president and his men in an investigation regarding their relations with the Kremlin and Russian intelligence, who are accused of interfering in the presidential elections in November 2016.
According to the Washington Post, he revealed sensitive intelligence information about ISIS to the Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov during a meeting in the Oval Office. This added up with the growing accusations to Rod Jay Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general of the United States at the department of justice, to appoint Robert Mueller as a special investigator, in circumstances similar to what happened with former US president Nixon during the Watergate scandal that led to his resignation.
Perhaps these repercussions took a long time to interact in the US political and intelligence circles and struck a cordon around president Trump and his administration for the past two months, even before the visits of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia to Washington.
It is also the same crisis that forced Trump to accept the resignation of his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and suspend the appointment of his White House strategist Stephen Bannon to the National Security Council.
Hence our reading of Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia and his meeting with the leaders of the Islamic countries—along with his attempt to mobilise the region to serve his policies and help him get rid of his crises—as a tactical move to “escape to the front”, searching for free meals paid by the Gulf countries—led by Saudi Arabia, but how?
Quoting the American newspaper headlines: “what can Trump achieve in Riyadh?”
Trump’s visit to Riyadh and the region seems ambitious in terms of geography, politics, and economics, but it will not make breakthroughs in the complicated issues, according to Simon Henderson, director of the Washington Institute’s Gulf and Energy Policy Program.
The political commentator on Israeli Channel 2, Audi Siegel, said that Trump will demand Arab rulers to lift the ban on travel of Israelis to Arab countries and allow direct flights to and from Tel Aviv, cooperate in the telecommunications sector, and open more channels of free trade, allowing Israeli sports and arts teams to participate in the international and regional events organised in the Arab countries.
On the contrary to what the Palestinian Authority leadership and the Arab rulers are betting on, the new US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, revealed that Trump, who calls for “the deal of the century”, has no plan to achieve it.
Friedman denied in an interview with the Israeli Hayom newspaper and its Arabic translation that Israel is required to make any concessions in order to achieve a settlement to the conflict—not even freezing the construction of the settlements.
As you see, it is a free meal for Trump and Israel at the expense of the Arabs. It is his adventure to summon Baghdad and Nuri al-Said allies under the name “Arabian Nato” to justify the consumption of the region’s potentials and the surplus of its oil revenues in a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites, which Trump and Israel would benefit from. It’s a project that we can never allow to happen.
I think that the Egyptian leadership, which has refused to enter the quagmire of Yemen or to divide Syria and change the regimes by armed force, cannot agree to revive the policy of alliances dropped by Egypt in the fifties under its then-leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Egypt can’t agree on that today with President Al-Sisi, as we see him smarter than that.
Here is the question: If so, why did Al-Sisi participate in Trump’s meeting?
The answer is, it’s Egypt’s role and circumstances that drive it to cooperate, participate, and play its cards. It is not prudent for the president not to accept the Saudi king’s call and Trump’s telephone call last Monday expressing his interest in meeting in Riyadh.
The delegations accompanying the two sides discussed arrangements for combating terrorism.
Al-Sisi might know how to manage and use Trump’s impulsiveness to be useful in serious cooperation and shifting some of his tactics to serve the region.
Read with me what was published by the Washington Post on Wednesday about the former National Security Ageny (NSA)/Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director and current professor at George Mason University, Michael Hayden, who named Donald Trump “Polezni Durak”, or Useful Idiot in the Russian language, used during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Hayden used the name to refer to the vision of Russian president Vladimir Putin to use Trump’s foolishness to serve Russia’s interests in the world. Ruling America is a new experiment for Trump, and he is one of the least experienced presidents in American history.
If American specialists see their president this way, why aren’t we alerted?
Arabs should know that Trump is not a trustworthy partner and friend, and they shouldn’t invite him or his ally “Israel” for such expensive free meals that our future generations will definitely pay for, both in their present and future.
