Obama National Security Advisor: Trump’s Foreign Policy Is A Saudi Wish List
US foreign policy is now Saudi Arabia’s wish list, according to former Deputy National Advisor Ben Rhodes. Rhodes served under President Barack Obama and was instrumental in re-establishing relations with Cuba in 2014. He has claimed that the Saudis should not be seen as US allies.
Rhodes told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough that military action against Iran because of its alleged attack on a Saudi oil facility would be ill-advised.
“I absolutely do not believe, Joe, that that would be in the interest of the United States to go to war with Iran on behalf of an attack on Saudi oil infrastructure,” Rhodes said. “Strikes me as a very bad idea. And the reality, Joe, is we are where we are because of what Trump has done over the last couple of years.”
“This was the predictable consequence of pull out of a nuclear deal that was working, of escalating the sanctions on Iran over the objections of all of our closest allies who worked with us in that process, particularly the Europeans, of heaping threat upon threat of the Iranians. At the same time we backed an open-ended Saudi war in Yemen against the Houthis that has killed tens of thousands of people, put millions more at risk for famine. Inevitably that leads to this type of escalation in the Middle East.”
Scarborough asked about Trump’s comments that the Saudis pay cash to the US, creating jobs and giving the country billions.
“I think it’s an outrageous statement, Joe,” Rhodes said. “American foreign policy should not be for sale. The American military should certainly not be for sale to the highest bidder.”
“The reality is Saudi Arabia is not a treaty ally of the United States. We have no obligation to come to the defense of their oil facilities and increasingly they’re a country that should concern us in terms of their complete rejection of democratic values.”
“What I’ve seen since Trump came to office is American foreign policy in the Middle East has essentially become a Saudi wish list,” Rhodes went on to say.
“You had the blockade against Qatar. You had open-ended blank check support for they’ve for the in Yemen. You had the pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. What we have to ask is, why? And we know, as Joe pointed out, Trump tells us, well, they pay cash not just for our airplanes, they pay cash at Trump properties.”
“If this regime in Saudi Arabia continues down the course that they’re going down, more and more brutal human rights violations, more and more aggressive foreign policy, I do not believe we should be providing them with these kinds of weapons absence some change on their behalf.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
