Is Trump Adopting Obama's Failed Strategy in the Middle East?

President Barack Obama and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, June 3, 2009. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)

Writing in The National Interest, Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, criticizes President Trump for doubling down on President Obama’s strategy in regards to Saudi Arabia. Bandow points to the U.S. assistance to the Kingdom in its war against Yemen, a country that has done nothing to harm U.S. interests, as an example. He writes (abridged):

The U.S. is at war in Yemen. Special Forces are on the ground in Saudi Arabia assisting the oil giant against its impoverished neighbor. Washington also is providing Riyadh’s military with munitions, targeting assistance, and aerial refueling. All to bomb a nation whose people have done nothing against Americans.

Although President Donald Trump once criticized the Saudi royals for trying to “control U.S. politicians with daddy’s money,” he has continued to support Saudi Arabia’s war efforts. Congress has too, with the Senate recently voting 55 to 44 against taking up a measure to decide whether America should involved in Yemen. At least the vote was closer than last year, when the Senate refused to block a sale of precision-guided missiles to Saudi Arabia.

Candidate Donald Trump criticized President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, but President Trump is doubling down on Obama’s unnecessary Middle Eastern war. There is no good reason to do so on behalf of an authoritarian regime guilty of promoting Islamic radicalism. The U.S. is subordinating fundamental American interests and values to those of a royal dictatorship and entangling the U.S. in another distant, unnecessary, and unwinnable conflict.