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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in Washington on Tuesday for the start of a two-week tour of the United States after what many observers thought were successful visits to Cairo and London. The Crown Prince’s visit to Washington highlights the warmer relation between US and Saudi Arabia, and will expand the scope and value of a 75-year-old partnership, which has always been bigger than oil-for-security.
US President Donald Trump welcomes Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, US on March 20, 2018.
The first priority of Crown Prince Mohammed’s visit to Washington is to show his determination to speed up the internal social and political reforms inside Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed expressed his determination to work on “human rights” issues, especially the equality between the sexes in the conservative Saudi society.
Crown Prince Mohammed said in an exclusive interview with CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) that Saudi Arabia “believes in many of the principles of human rights,” and added that "absolutely" women and men are equal in Saudi Arabia.
Besides Washington, Crown Prince Mohammed and his advisors will travel to New York, Boston, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, and Houston. In these cities, Crown Prince Mohammed’s primary goal will be to cultivate, expand, and deepen ties with leading US financial, technology, entertainment, and energy companies in order to advance Saudi’s economic development and diversification plan, as laid out by the Vision 2030.
US President Donald Trump (6th R) and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (6th L) of Saudi Arabia hold an inter-delegation meeting in the Oval Office at the White House on March 20, 2018 in Washington, United States.
The second goal of Crown Prince Mohammed’s visit is to defend Saudi’s ongoing military intervention in Yemen. The US Senate has just rejected a bipartisan effort to halt American military support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. Many international human rights groups have accused Saudi-led coalition forces of indiscriminately bombing civilians and critical infrastructure such as hospitals and schools.
Meanwhile, Crown Prince Mohammed has been blaming Shia Houthi rebel groups for the humanitarian crisis that has engulfed Yemen since 2015, when Saudi Arabia decided to intervene the Yemen civil war, and he has to defend Saudi Arabia’s military interventions in Yemen from the criticisms.
The third issue on the agenda – possibly the most important one of Crown Prince Mohammed’s visit - is to hit out against Iran and persuade the US to be on guard against Iranian influence in the region. Crown Price Mohammed also compared Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Khameini to Adolf Hitler, and claimed to CBS that “many countries around the world and in Europe did not realize how dangerous Hitler was until what happened.” The Saudi strategy toward America is built fundamentally on the Trump family connection, expensive lobbyists and Iran bashing. And it is important for Crown Prince Mohammed to show the American political elites the danger of the “Iran threat” in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, other sensitive issues such as the Qatar crisis and Israel-Palestine will also be included in Crown Prince Mohammed’s agenda. The Saudi relationship with the Trump team is closer than with any president since George H.W. Bush and the liberation of Kuwait, and Crown Prince Mohammed’s visit will further expand the US-Saudi partnership.
The author Wang Jin is a PhD Candidate at School of Political Science in University of Haifa and also a Research Fellow at Syria Research Center in Northwest University.This article is adapted from CGTN, and is not what APD stands for.
(CGTN)
