Tariq Al-Hamid – Saudi Arabia… Obama and confrontation

The Wall Street Journal published a story about Saudi-American relations that can only be described as part of the organized disinformation campaign to demonize Saudi Arabia. Someone might say that it is just a story, and it is not worth commenting on.
This is not true. Rather, we must be aware of the seriousness of what is written because it has a profound impact on legislators, voters, study centers, book authors, and economic elites, as well as international influence.
We will not discuss the content of the story, but rather the basis of these misleading campaigns to demonize Saudi Arabia, and I have written about it repeatedly, and now we are going into its reference.
The campaigns against Saudi Arabia in the United States are not new, but rather before the terrorist attacks of September.
The new – the old is that it is not the product of the work of activists and lobbies, but the product of Obamaism. Since 2009, and Obama’s accession to power, the campaign to demonize Saudi Arabia and the countries of moderation has begun in an organized manner, and official leaks have begun.
Here are two examples, quoting from Obama himself, that show his ideological hostility to Saudi Arabia, as well as the stark contradiction of the American media, and those who leak to him. The first example, in April 2015, in an interview with journalist Thomas Friedman.
Obama says of Saudi Arabia that “they have some external threats,” but they also have “some internal threats” from “young people who are unemployed,” and a “destructive ideology and nihilism… and dissatisfaction within their own countries.”
The second example is a lengthy interview with “The Atlantic,” April 2016. Obama said that “the Saudis, and others in the Gulf, pumped money and large numbers of imams and teachers.” He accused the Saudis of supporting “Wahhabism”.
With that story, the journalist reported that Obama, in a speech in 2002, before he became president, criticized President Bush Jr. for his alliance with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which Obama described as “our alleged allies in the Middle East,” calling on Bush to stop “tolerating corruption.”
The Atlantic journalist said that “Obama criticizes misogyny” in Saudi Arabia, and “is secretly arguing that a country cannot function in the modern world when it oppresses half its population.” Obama was telling foreign leaders: “You can measure the success of a society by how it treats its women.”
In that interview, Obama said the Saudis should “share” the Middle East with the Iranians. Well, Obama said it, and Saudi Arabia is changing, and Saudi Arabia has changed completely after that, as it broke with all manifestations of extremism, and Saudi Arabia led the largest war on corruption in the history of the region.
Women have obtained rights that women have not obtained in “democratic” Arab countries, and they have not been granted in the first place in Iran. Under the leadership of King Salman bin Abdulaziz, and the direct planning and implementation of his Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has opened the doors of all sectors for young people, in a way that surpasses the entire region.
What has changed after all that with the American campaigns? no thing! Rather, it increased, with official leaks, and the reason behind all of this is the dominant obama. The Democrats themselves are now opposing the Obama trotting behind Iran. Fareed Zakaria wrote in the “Washington Post” a remarkable article about the need to reform the relationship with Saudi Arabia, saying, “In international relations, strategy is chosen over ideology,” which can be considered the first dissent from Obamaism.
Accordingly, we are not in front of an honest criticism, but rather an Obama ideologist, contradictory yesterday and today, and most importantly, the change taking place in our country is to serve our interests, as Prince Muhammad bin Salman said, and not to please the Obamas and others. Therefore, we must not get angry and boycott, but confront and explain.