“EXCEEDING all expectations,” was how Donald Trump described his luxury golf club in Dubai. If only his Middle East plans were as smooth as his putting greens. Far from marking a break with President Obama’s inclination to isolationism, Gulf rulers fear that President Trump could increase the distance. Instead of greater intervention, protection and the permanent troop presence in Iraq they hoped Mrs Clinton would deliver, they now fear Mr Trump will shy from long-standing Arab allies and abandon the region to others’ devices. “The honeymoon is over when it comes to relations with the US,” says a palace insider in Riyadh.
Maintaining a foothold, Mr Trump will probably let the Pentagon finish the job against Islamic State in Mosul if it has not fallen by January 20th. He might, he says, create safe zones in Syria, to prevent refugees from heading west. But unlike Mrs Clinton (though like Mr Obama) he opposes supplying more arms to Syria’s Sunni rebels or enforcing a no-fly zone to protect them. And he scorns intervention for ideological causes, such as regime-change, democracy and foreign nation-building, preferring to concentrate...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21709925-he-knows-golf-does-he-know-gulf-trump-and-middle-east?fsrc=rss
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