A Gratuitous Insult in Jeddah

By John Whitbeck

Probably the most quoted phrases from the speech which US President Joe Biden learn on July 16 whereas seated at a desk in Jeddah with the leaders of eight autocracies (the six GCC monarchies, Egypt and Jordan) and the interim prime minister of 1 dysfunctional remnant of American regime change (Iraq) was:

“We won’t stroll away and depart a vacuum to be stuffed by China, Russia or Iran. And we’ll search to construct on this second with lively, principled American management. The USA shouldn’t be going wherever.”

In mild of all of the chaos, loss of life and destruction which america has wreaked on the area over the previous twenty years, many within the area — and even on the desk — may need questioned whether or not this pronouncement needs to be seen as a promise or a menace.

Extra importantly, it’s outstanding that whoever wrote these phrases (presumably Secretary of State Tony Blinken and/or Nationwide Safety Advisor Jake Sullivan) didn’t grasp how insulting they had been to the 9 leaders to whom they had been, no less than formally, addressed and to their international locations.

The primary clear implication of those phrases is that the international locations of the area don’t possess both the capability or the correct to face on their very own toes and decide their very own destinies however are destined all the time to be dominated by some exterior higher energy — within the latest previous, the Ottomans, British and French and extra just lately the People — and that the People absolutely intend to keep up their present place of dominance.

The second clear implication of those phrases is that the international locations of the area are usually not of curiosity to america for any cause inherent of their peoples, their societies or their histories however purely as pawns on the nice geopolitical recreation board on which america competes for energy and affect towards its personal demonized adversaries.

Such is the state of American “diplomacy” immediately.

Of their protection, the speechwriters might not even have been addressing these phrases to the folks within the room however, quite, by means of the media, to People who had been questioning why Biden was making this journey in any respect, they usually may have assumed that nobody within the room would take something that Biden mentioned significantly.

The phrases with which Biden ended his speech had been little question not written within the paper textual content in his arms: “And God defend our troops.”

These are the ritual phrases with which Biden concludes just about all of his political speeches on residence territory. When he uttered them on the finish of his well-known “Putin should go!” speech in Warsaw, they weren’t inappropriate, since he was promising extra conflict. Nevertheless, on the finish of his speech in Jeddah, wherein he was professing to be curious about peace and stability within the area, they had been merely weird.

– John V. Whitbeck is a Paris-based worldwide lawyer. This text was first printed in CounterPunch.org. It’s republished right here with permission from the creator.