Saudi King Salman Bin Abdelaziz Al Saud and US president Donald Trump, attend Arab and Muslim leaders summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May 21, 2017. Picture by Balkis Press/ABACA/ABACA/PA Images. All rights reserved.The orchestration of the coalition is designed to prop up a Saudi regime beset by serious internal squabbling along with an array of social and economic problems exacerbated by a military quagmire of its own making in Yemen. However, it can neither contain Iran nor prevent previously disenfranchised Shias from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the shores of the Mediterranean in Syria and Lebanon from having their say. This is particularly true in Iraq, where the incumbent Shia government in Baghdad is supposedly a close ally of the United States.
Despite the $350 billion ‘tribute’ paid by the Saudis which included the purchase of more than $100 billion of unwanted weaponry to the financially drained Kingdom, it is unlikely that in the final analysis, their reward will serve any purpose beyond the ‘photo opportunity’ that exhibited so many Sunni Arab leaders humbling themselves around President Trump.
Having secured his expected ‘tribute’ from the Arabs, President Trump then travelled to Israel and much to the chagrin of Israeli leaders, skirted around their key issues, such as continued US opposition to Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory or moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by simply harping on the exaggerated anti-Iran rhetoric carried over from Riyadh.
