Should We Be Trusting These People?

Every time our country revisits the topic of developing closer relationships with questionable countries, I can’t help but feel uneasy. Currently, President Trump is ingratiating himself with several Middle Eastern countries; most of them have discomfiting reputations. I realize that we can benefit from relationships with many countries that don’t have stellar backgrounds, but is there any line to be drawn that would stop us from building alliances with them? Frankly, I don’t think there is an easy answer to this question, but I do wonder if our country should be considering the history of these countries, and whether we should be friendly with them. There are several examples I would give.

The first country I’ll focus on is Saudi Arabia. After the brutal murder of Amal Khashoggi in 2018, which appeared to be ordered by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the appropriateness of supporting such a cruel regime seemed worth debating. That incident aside, the Saudi government’s involvement in 9/11 has recently been called into question:

In its report, the [9/11] commission took particular pains not to implicate Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national who met two of the 9/11 hijackers in Los Angeles shortly after they arrived in the US. Bayoumi then helped them move to San Diego, where he signed as the guarantor on an apartment they rented. [snip] But over the past several months, a raft of new documents released by the American and British governments suggest that the 9/11 Commission got it wrong. An FBI memo declassified in March, in response to an executive order by President Joe Biden, reported that Bayoumi was receiving a monthly stipend from Saudi intelligence. In other words, he was not a student but a spy. According to the FBI memo, dated June 14, 2017, Bayoumi was tasked with gathering information ‘on persons of interest in the Saudi community’ and passing the intelligence to Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud, the Saudi ambassador at the time.

Has enough time passed that we can assume that if the Saudi government was involved, it’s ancient history by now and doesn’t need to be reviewed in the present?

Apparently, President Trump has also welcomed Syria into a relationship with our country. Its new president, President Ahmed al-Sharaa, impressed Trump, and Trump has not only chosen to drop sanctions against Syria but is encouraging al-Sharaa to join the Abraham Accords. But al-Sharaa has a sketchy history:

The U.S. had slapped sanctions on Syria several times over the past 20 years, aimed at the regime of Bashar al-Assad, who had taken over the country following the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad. Hafez had ruled Syria for decades with an iron fist. But the sanctions had remained in place after Assad fled the country in December in the wake of a surprise lightning campaign led by Sharaa and his coalition of rebel fighters. Sharaa was himself on the U.S. list of designated terrorists at the time for his past links to al-Qaida and the Islamic State, but that designation was swiftly removed as Sharaa vowed to build an inclusive society with protection for all of Syria's myriad ethnic and religious minorities.

Al-Sharaa has also traveled to many countries to enlist the support of their leaders as he tries to bring order to Syria. There still remains one problem with his governance, however:

Starting in April, rampant violence has been committed against the Druze by Syria's new government. Al-Sharaa seems to be hoping that dapper Western tailoring will fool the West into assuming that his thoughts align with his wardrobe. The Sunni Muslims of HTS [terrorist group] have caused the deaths of countless Druze civilians. Videos posted on social media show HTS forces executing Druze civilians in the town of Sahnaya. Other HTS footage shows Druze civilians abducted and humiliated.

Al-Sharaa isn’t off to a great start.

Finally, there are the Qataris, whom Trump has openly praised. The country has given us billions of dollars, particularly to the universities, and has done so since 1986. Their plans to infiltrate our education system have become obvious. These were my observations in American Thinker:

‘The Qataris are implementing a very clever strategy,’ says [Brig. Gen. (Res.) Sima] Vaknin-Gill. ‘They are focusing their activity on the academy, since they understand that this is the best way to reach and influence future generations. But even within the academy, there is a focus on areas of interest that are, in turn, agents of influence – campuses that are identified with very advanced technology, campuses that specialize in media studies, healthcare, politics and policy and so on.’ But the reasons for gaining that type of influence are even more insidious and detrimental to the national security and future of our country. Qatar is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the supporters of Hamas. Their unified mission is to gain world power and destroy the Jews. Given their patience and determination for global power, it is a mystery why they have been supported as a quasi-ally of the United States. Except that the lack of transparency, accountability, and reporting on the changes to their programs are almost non-existent, so who really knows what is transpiring?

One observer provided the following reaction regarding President Trump’s attitude toward foreign governments. He is not interested in nation-building or limiting support exclusively to democratic regimes:

As Trump sees it, how a government is organized internally—whether it’s a liberal democratic republic or a repressive police state—is irrelevant to America’s national interests. What matters is how that state behaves. If Iran sponsors terrorism and pursues a nuclear weapon, then Trump will use at least economic coercion to punish Iran’s adventurism. So long as Saudi Arabia and its ruling family are willing to invest in America’s economy and act as a stabilizing force in the region, then who cares if it is an undemocratic monarchy accused of murdering its critics abroad?

These are some of the reasons I’m uneasy about building relationships with leaders who have a vicious history. Will they be reliable in following through on agreements? Is there a danger of their betraying our trust? Are there any criteria for countries to be welcomed into the fold or rejected as a partner?

I think I have good reasons to be uneasy.