You Shouldn’t Win a Nobel Peace Prize for Selling Weapons of War to Dictators
Three stories collided to make this article.
First, Trump is selling F35s, our most sophisticated fighter jets, to the UAE in order to get them to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. This occurs just before Election Day, with pomp and circumstance, to satisfy not only the Israeli lobby, but also Evangelicals, who have some religious beliefs about Israel. The problems with this is that the UAE is a group of seven shiekdoms, which is still a dictatorship, near the bottom of the Democracy ratings. Furthermore, they are not a part of a Democratic defense group like NATO, whose mutual actions are governed by long standing humanitarian restraints on war and on individual actions. F35s are not cars. Trump has pushed them as just good for American manufacturing jobs, and takes no responsibilities for what use they are put to, including being a potential threat to Israel.
Second, the Woodward Tapes, (Woodgate?), show Trump claiming that he saved MBS’s “ass”, that is Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, in exchange for hundreds of billions of dollars in arms sales. Based on a set of pictures Trump once showed, they could add up to $400 billion in military jets, tanks, and ships. Again, Saudi Arabia, ruled for centuries by the House of Saud, is a totalitarian regime near the bottom of Democracy ratings. They are also not part of defense pacts over which we have any input or controls. They have used our bombs against helpless rebels and hospitals in Yemen. Trump sold them to Saudi Arabia in violation of Congressional restrictions by declaring a “National Emergency”.
Third, conservative Norwegian lawmaker Christian Tybring-Gjedde, nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for shepherding the Israeli-UAE recognition or treaty, or whatever they have worked out, which still isn’t clear. Today, Fox News said Trump was also nominated by a backer in the Swedish Parliament, Magnus Jacobsson, for normalizing economic relations between Serbia and Kosovo. This also includes Kosovo recognizing Israel, and Serbia moving its Embassy to Jerusalem. There also is a Bahrain-Israel deal. I doubt whether King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain runs a Democracy. Bahrain is rated 173rd in Democracy on V-dem.net, with only a 5% score, in the bin with China, Syria, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, slightly above North Korea. In the Democracy ratings, Kosovo is 84th with a 41% score, and Serbia is 117 with a 25% score.
There has already been a Trump-Netanyahu mutual back-scratching society which comes out before elections in both the US and Israel. This really amounts to foreign interference in our elections, which we now know is partly bought by quid-pro-quos, which endanger Peace, and Middle East countries. We wonder if more quid-pro-quos will become known. Remember, Trump was Impeached for withholding military aid to Ukraine, in requesting a quid-pro-quo against Biden.
Of course, none of these treaties involve or are approved by the Palestinians, who are the necessary party in leading to peace and a humanitarian settlement.
This presentation of five agreements in one week, including the meetings with the Taliban, raises a lot of questions of whether this just fits into a Trump-Fox News foreign policy week of the election presentations. Could any of these have occurred earlier, or been more complete later, but were required to fit into the broadcast schedule? Now, foreign policy has to be approved by the Senate. To my knowledge, there have been no hearings on any of these, where Secretary of State Pompeo would have laid out our policies and goals, and listened to learned Senate Advise and Consent. Trump has also not given any such speeches. Considering only the Press seems to have revealed the F35 deal with the UAE, what other deals were made without Senate or Public notification or advice and consent?
Maybe Trump will be satisfied by the Peace Prize nomination itself (of course not). But the Nobel Peace Prize should never be awarded for selling the most advanced weapons of war to dictatorships over which Democracies have no alliances or control. Nor should the US celebrate deals struck by a desperate President just before an election, over which dictatorships now hold considerable leverage.
