Judith Miller: Trump Has Anchored His Mid East Policy and Arab Policy in Saudi Arabia and It’s a Mess

EXCERPT:

MILLER: "This man, Jamal Khashoggi, was not just a journalist, he was a political activist. He spoke to many, many Saudis. He had over 1.7 million Twitter followers. He was someone who had decided that democracy was something he thought he ought to support. Jamal had long-standing ties to the Muslim Brotherhood which is at odds with the Saudi Wahhabi regime. They are both Islamists, they are both very, very conservative, but they despise each other. And perhaps MbS, as the Crown Prince is known, Mohammad bin Salman, was threatened, felt threatened by this man with the platform in Washington and The Washington Post behind him. Maybe he decided the time had come to silence him. And he’s done other rash things that have sometimes led his friends and supporters in the CIA and the Pentagon to roll their eyebrows and say, boy, maybe we made a mistake. Maybe a 33-year-old young man who buys a lot of expensive things himself and then arrests 200 wealthy Saudis to basically take their money away in the Ritz-Carlton, maybe this is not the guy who should be running Saudi Arabia. But it’s too late for that because Donald Trump has really anchored his Middle Eastern policy and his Arab policy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It’s a mess."