Saudi arabia

As Americans confront high inflation rates, tumbling prices at the gas pump are at least giving them a little relief. Brent Crude, the global benchmark for oil, has declined by 27 percent from its $127 peak six months ago. Gas prices in the United States, which were averaging just over $5 a gallon earlier in the summer, are now in the $3.72 range. That means Americans are saving $10 to $15 every time they fill up their tanks. Yet crude is a global commodity, and its price can fluctuate for any number of reasons — war, recession, and an economic slowdown in China to name but a few.

It appears that the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Florida residence was just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, the Bureau's probe has been underway for months, and its decision to interview former White House lawyers suggests that law enforcement is not only interested in what was in the more than 700 pages of documents that Trump took, but also why he took them. The Washington Post recently alleged that some of those documents are related to nuclear weapons. This has shone a light on Trump’s prior attempts to share sensitive nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia, a country that has flirted with building nuclear weapons. Could Trump’s friends in Riyadh have been due for one of his infamous quid pro quos? History provides a guide. As early as 2016, Donald Trump Jr.

When news broke that President Biden was planning a trip to Saudi Arabia to visit the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MbS), members of his party were horrified. Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was especially disturbed and recommended the White House cancel it outright. "I wouldn't go. I wouldn't shake his hand,” Schiff told CBS on June 5. "This is someone who butchered an American resident, cut him up into pieces in the most terrible and pre-meditated way.” That resident was Jamal Khashoggi, a former Saudi royal family insider who used his perch as a columnist at the Washington Post to raise awareness about the crown prince’s ruthless ways.

There is an age-old dogma in the US foreign policy establishment: when America pulls back, chaos ensues. Like an anti-inflammatory that keeps arthritis under control, Washington’s presence in this or that region keeps enemies cowed, partners reassured, and the barbarians at the gates. Of course, just because an argument is popular doesn’t mean it’s accurate. There are several problems with the “America must be everywhere, at all times” line of thinking, the most poignant of which is that it turns the US military into an agency of global rent-a-cops.

Something strange, but miraculous, is happening in Yemen right now: no bombs are falling from the sky. According to the Yemen Data Project, an independent group keeping track of the violence in the Arab world’s poorest country, there hasn’t been a single Saudi coalition airstrike over the last week. This is the first time since Yemen’s civil-turned-proxy war began that an airstrike hasn’t been recorded, an unprecedented and welcome development for the millions of Yemenis who have lost so much as their rich Saudi neighbors seek to drive the Houthi-led rebel movement to the negotiating table.

Millions of innocent civilians uprooted from their homes. Residential areas turned into dust, rubble and wire. Thousands of people killed in errant airstrikes. Store shelves emptied of basic staples. A humanitarian crisis dominating the everyday lives of a large swath of the population, who just want to escape the shelling and the fighting. This is the scene the world now equates with Ukraine, which has been subjected to a barbaric war of choice courtesy of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Yet for one poverty-stricken nation more than 2,400 miles to the south, this has been the grim reality for years.

Long-time readers of this site may be aware that yours truly has not only applauded the Trump administration’s successful efforts to normalize Israel’s relationship with several Arab countries but has also proposed awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Jared Kushner, the architect of the Abraham Accords. There were many reasons for my bullish sentiments regarding the Trump administration’s Middle East policy. First and foremost, as I pointed out, it disrupted the old American paradigm that held that any effort towards rapprochement between Arabs and Israelis hostage to the ultimatums of the radical Palestinian leadership.