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Nicholas Kristof
By Nicolas Kristof
Opinion columnist
American leaders looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes to feel “his soul,” praising him as “very undeniable and trustworthy” or even as a “genius. “They “restored” relations, tolerated the invasions of Georgia and Crimea, turned a blind eye to atrocities. and even went so far as to blame “America. ” Madness” because of the tensions in Russian-American relations, because they were looking for a solid relationship and Putin controlled a vital country.
But as the weekend riots in Russia have pointed out, dictators are eternal, until they are no more. In retrospect, ignoring Putin’s provocations is not shrewd realpolitik, but naivety.
So where else do we make the same mistake, empowering a dictator instead of confronting him?My candidate for tomorrow’s Putin is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, better known as M. B. S. President Biden and his aides courted M. B. S. repair relations with him, even as he seeks a “civilian” nuclear program. This is as morally bankrupt as our mishandling of Putin over the past two decades.
“MBS is an aspiring Putin,” said Dr. Khalid Aljabri, a Saudi cardiologist who in the past worked as a doctor for the Saudi counterterrorism agency. Aljabri, who has a brother and sister jailed in Saudi Arabia for political reasons, lives in the United States and is frustrated that the crown prince, as he puts it, has played with Biden “like a violin. “
Not everyone is comfortable comparing to M. B. S. with Putin. ” I don’t need to make that comparison because I don’t need to make M. B. S. happy,” said Alia al-Hathloul, a Saudi woman living in Europe. His sister Loujain, Nobel Peace Prize candidate, imprisoned and tortured for protecting women’s rights.
Hathloul added that Western leaders learned a lesson from Russia that applies to Saudi Arabia: “Don’t count on the fools; you will regret it. “
The crown prince specializes in madmen. Well he kidnapped the Lebanese prime minister and started a war with Yemen, triggering what the United Nations described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It provoked a rift with Qatar, a very important partner of the US. UU. se believes it is the murder and dismemberment of a Washington Post columnist, my friend Jamal Khashoggi, that has led critics to say that M. B. S. it actually means “M. Bone vio”.
In short, it is a Putin-style style of deceiving Western leaders eager for a partner. And is he a leader who can be trusted with a nuclear program?
Still, it may be in the cards. Biden’s management is reportedly seeking a deal in which the Saudis recognize Israel, a diplomatic coup that could take down Biden in the 2024 election. Like its price, M. B. S. would demand security guarantees from the United States and acceptance of a “civilian” Saudi nuclear program involving uranium enrichment.
The United States has traditionally opposed enrichment, and such a deal is likely to fail. For the same reasons we don’t need extremists in Iran to have nuclear weapons, we shouldn’t need extremists in Saudi Arabia to be on the right track. to get them.
How can we say that we are taking on Putin in Ukraine because we are in the rule of law while Biden is trading blows with a Saudi leader who is also invading a neighbor and ruling even more tyrannically at home, without even the fig leaf of sham national elections??
Advocates of M. B. S. say it is popular at home, because it has eased social and cultural restrictions. Yes, that’s right. But that Putin also stepped forward in life in Russia in the 2000s and remains popular there.
One of the most puzzling aspects of Saudi-American dating is that both sides act as if M. B. S. we had more than one barrel.
Last year, Mohammed cut the amount of oil in a move that helped Russia and perhaps aimed to show us who’s boss. It implicitly or explicitly threatens to turn to China and other countries for weapons or support. And just this month, the M. B. S. , the aide who allegedly mastered Khashoggi’s killing resurfaced in public: a message from the crown prince to “push him in front of the Biden administration,” according to Sarah Leah Whitson of Democracy for the Arab World Now, a human rights organization.
In fact, we are the ones who have influence, because M. B. S. it depends on the United States for its survival. The Saudi military is so pathetic that they may not even defeat a motley army in Yemen, and no country other than the United States can protect MBS. And if things go wrong, how are the Saudis going to go through to getting spare portions for their complicated equipment from the U. S. military?
Our goal is a civilian rendezvous with Saudi Arabia, and officials meet with M. B. S. But we must not allow a two-bit dictator to lead us.
Whitson points out a difference between Saudi Arabia and other dictatorships: Russia, China and Iran don’t ask us to arm them, but M. B. S. He insists that we do all this for him, and so far we have followed him.
If we’ve learned anything from a quarter-century of miscalculation with Putin, it’s that rogue dictators are trustworthy partners.
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Nicholas Kristof joined The New York Times in 1984 and has been a columnist since 2001. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work on China and the genocide in Darfur. His most recent e-book is “Tighrope: Americans Reaching for Hope. “
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