Donald Trump’s Saudi embrace complicates scene for India

WASHINGTON: Exactly a year to the day since Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Iran to advance India's interests through the Chabahar port on the heels of the Obama-engineered US-Iran nuclear deal, President Donald Trump has thrown a monkey wrench into the works. By fully backing Saudi Arabia, Iran's regional rival, at the head of what is virtually a Sunni alliance against a Teheran-led Shia bloc, the US President appears to have heightened the internecine battle between the two Islamic sects playing out in the middle-east, rather than the professed aim of bringing peace to the region, reports foreign media. 

Whether or not this gambit gives breathing room for the US and Israel, it certainly sets the stage for greater tension, particularly with Washington lining up a $ 110 billion arms package for the Saudis that will ostensibly boost job creation in America. Trump made no secret of his antipathy towards Iran -- a country his predecessor engaged extensively to arrive at a nuclear accord - by calling on the Saudi-led Sunni alliance to isolate a nation he said has ''fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror.''

Commentators across the world have been quick to point out that Saudi Arabia is no less - if not more - culpable in this matter. ''Trump promises jobs for Americans to build weapons for Saudi regime that enabled 9/11 murderers and blocked FBI investigation of 9/11 crimes,'' filmmaker Micheal Moore tweeted on Sunday, even as several analysts pointed out that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis.

Human rights activists are also appalled. Moore tweeted: ''Trump Saudi Arabia schedule Sun morn: 7am: Breakfast/ Beheading. 8am: Melania "ceremonially" to be dragged out of car she attempts to drive.

Trump's Saudi outreach has astonished even his hardcore supporters. Roger Stone, Trump's one-time campaign adviser, said seeing the President accept an award from the Saudi monarch ''makes me want to puke.'' The Washington Post called aspects of the visit ''bizarre and un-American,'' pointing out that while other US Presidents made it clear that they had to deal with Saudi Arabia, they did not endorse the Saudi culture, which Trump and his delegation did by participating in a ''sinister'' all-male sword dance.

The whole-hearted Trump tilt towards Saudi Arabia vis-a-vis Iran also complicates things for New Delhi, which tries to maintain equal distance between the two Islamic powers, in part because New Delhi has extensive trade ties with both, and India's syncretic Muslim population has large numbers of both Sunnis and Shias.

The US-Saudi embrace also draws in Pakistan, a Saudi client state that is trying to worm its way back into Washington's fold after being put out in the cold during the Obama years. Although Pakistan's prime minister Nawaz Sharif did not receive due attention at the U.S-Sunni summit in Riyadh - he was neither given a platform to speak nor did he get a one-on-one with Trump that the Pakistani media had projected -- the country's former Army chief, Gen.Raheel Sharif, was seated prominently at a dinner table with Saudi Crown Prince and Defence Minister Muhammad Bin Salman and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, a key figure in the $ 110 billion arms deal.