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Monday, October 15, 2018 6:34:13 PM
Two princes: Kushner now faces a reckoning for Trump’s bet on the heir to the Saudi throne
"After journalist vanishes, focus shifts to young prince’s ‘dark’ and bullying side"
Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, visits the royal court in Riyadh during Trump’s May 2017 trip to Saudi Arabia. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
[Angelic in appearance, isn't he. So clean cut. Sooo nice.]
By Philip Rucker ,
Carol D. Leonnig and
Anne Gearan
October 14 at 9:35 PM
When President Trump chose Riyadh to make his debut on the world stage last year, he was placing a bet on Saudi Arabia, which serenaded him with military bands, dazzled him with a flyover of fighter jets and regaled him with a traditional sword dance.
[...]
One senior U.S. intelligence official said that Kushner has come under the influence of Mohammed’s simplistic view of power dynamics in the Middle East. “MBS has an elevator pitch,” this official said, that Kushner has bought into: Iran is the main enemy and the single obstacle to peace and stability in the Middle East.
The reality is far more complicated. But this official said Kushner has appeared uninterested in studying the nuances of security dilemmas in the region and has skipped some intelligence briefings before some high-stakes negotiations.
Kushner sold Trump and administration colleagues on the idea that Mohammed, like Kushner, was a reformer looking to shake up old alliances and break up corrupt power blocs within his country. Kushner privately argued for months last year that Mohammed would be key to crafting a Middle East peace plan, arguing that, with the prince’s blessing, much of the Arab world would follow, according to people with knowledge of the internal deliberations.
Kushner persuaded Trump to make Saudi Arabia his first foreign visit as president against the initial objections of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who as ExxonMobil’s chief executive had extensive experience negotiating with the Saudis and other Arab states. “It was their premier disagreement,” said the Trump adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.
Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others in the U.S. government were skeptical of Mohammed’s follow-through and of Saudi promises to help the United States counter Iran’s influence and destroy the Islamic State, according to the people familiar with the deliberations, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about them to reporters.
Trump put Kushner in charge of drafting a peace proposal for Israel and the Palestinians both because of Kushner’s long ties to Israel and because his authority as a Trump family member would be readily understood in Arab family dynasties, such as the one in Saudi Arabia.
In July, however, the Saudis delivered a setback. After the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, King Salman publicly rejected Kushner’s peace plan and reassured the Palestinians that Saudi Arabia would not make the concessions that the United States sought for Israel. The plan stalled, and Kushner was startled and angry at the Saudi response, according to diplomats familiar with his reaction.
Trump is expected to soon present a reworked package, but it is not clear whether the Saudis will provide the diplomatic backing and financial support that Kushner has sought.
“It all smacks of a massive naivete on his part that he could sit down with MBS and figure out Middle East peace and a broader framework” involving Arab states that want a durable solution, said Thomas Wright, a senior fellow at the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution.
The administration voiced little public criticism when Mohammed seemed to overstep with the detention last fall of leading Saudi business executives and a bizarre episode involving what may have been the brief kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister, nor when the Saudi crown prince picked a diplomatic fight this year with Canada, a close U.S. ally.
In general, Trump’s critics have said, the president’s admiration for strongmen and his reluctance to champion human rights and democracy make authoritarian leaders feel empowered because they do not fear U.S. retaliation.
“The Jared-MBS relationship revolves around the Middle East peace process, and the hope that Jared had for the Israeli-Palestinian issue,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen and former senior State Department official who is now policy director at the Middle East Institute, which has hosted Khashoggi.
But, Feierstein said, “MBS for his own reasons has played along and given the administration reason to believe that the Saudis will do more than I believe they ever will.”
Josh Dawsey and Shane Harris contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/two-princes-kushner-now-faces-a-reckoning-for-trumps-bet-on-the-saudi-heir/2018/10/14/6eaeaafc-ce46-11e8-a3e6-44daa3d35ede_story.html?utm_term=.be1f34f0dd77
"After journalist vanishes, focus shifts to young prince’s ‘dark’ and bullying side"
Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, visits the royal court in Riyadh during Trump’s May 2017 trip to Saudi Arabia. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
[Angelic in appearance, isn't he. So clean cut. Sooo nice.]
By Philip Rucker ,
Carol D. Leonnig and
Anne Gearan
October 14 at 9:35 PM
When President Trump chose Riyadh to make his debut on the world stage last year, he was placing a bet on Saudi Arabia, which serenaded him with military bands, dazzled him with a flyover of fighter jets and regaled him with a traditional sword dance.
[...]
One senior U.S. intelligence official said that Kushner has come under the influence of Mohammed’s simplistic view of power dynamics in the Middle East. “MBS has an elevator pitch,” this official said, that Kushner has bought into: Iran is the main enemy and the single obstacle to peace and stability in the Middle East.
The reality is far more complicated. But this official said Kushner has appeared uninterested in studying the nuances of security dilemmas in the region and has skipped some intelligence briefings before some high-stakes negotiations.
Kushner sold Trump and administration colleagues on the idea that Mohammed, like Kushner, was a reformer looking to shake up old alliances and break up corrupt power blocs within his country. Kushner privately argued for months last year that Mohammed would be key to crafting a Middle East peace plan, arguing that, with the prince’s blessing, much of the Arab world would follow, according to people with knowledge of the internal deliberations.
Kushner persuaded Trump to make Saudi Arabia his first foreign visit as president against the initial objections of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who as ExxonMobil’s chief executive had extensive experience negotiating with the Saudis and other Arab states. “It was their premier disagreement,” said the Trump adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.
Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others in the U.S. government were skeptical of Mohammed’s follow-through and of Saudi promises to help the United States counter Iran’s influence and destroy the Islamic State, according to the people familiar with the deliberations, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about them to reporters.
Trump put Kushner in charge of drafting a peace proposal for Israel and the Palestinians both because of Kushner’s long ties to Israel and because his authority as a Trump family member would be readily understood in Arab family dynasties, such as the one in Saudi Arabia.
In July, however, the Saudis delivered a setback. After the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, King Salman publicly rejected Kushner’s peace plan and reassured the Palestinians that Saudi Arabia would not make the concessions that the United States sought for Israel. The plan stalled, and Kushner was startled and angry at the Saudi response, according to diplomats familiar with his reaction.
Trump is expected to soon present a reworked package, but it is not clear whether the Saudis will provide the diplomatic backing and financial support that Kushner has sought.
“It all smacks of a massive naivete on his part that he could sit down with MBS and figure out Middle East peace and a broader framework” involving Arab states that want a durable solution, said Thomas Wright, a senior fellow at the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution.
The administration voiced little public criticism when Mohammed seemed to overstep with the detention last fall of leading Saudi business executives and a bizarre episode involving what may have been the brief kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister, nor when the Saudi crown prince picked a diplomatic fight this year with Canada, a close U.S. ally.
In general, Trump’s critics have said, the president’s admiration for strongmen and his reluctance to champion human rights and democracy make authoritarian leaders feel empowered because they do not fear U.S. retaliation.
“The Jared-MBS relationship revolves around the Middle East peace process, and the hope that Jared had for the Israeli-Palestinian issue,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen and former senior State Department official who is now policy director at the Middle East Institute, which has hosted Khashoggi.
But, Feierstein said, “MBS for his own reasons has played along and given the administration reason to believe that the Saudis will do more than I believe they ever will.”
Josh Dawsey and Shane Harris contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/two-princes-kushner-now-faces-a-reckoning-for-trumps-bet-on-the-saudi-heir/2018/10/14/6eaeaafc-ce46-11e8-a3e6-44daa3d35ede_story.html?utm_term=.be1f34f0dd77
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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