* Muammar Faisal Kholi
Despite the importance of the visit made by Donald Trump to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and his meeting with King Salman bin Abdulaziz and the signing of several agreements in various fields, valued at US $ 460 billion, and the US- Gulf Summit, and the Americas -Arab-Islamic Summit, but it is difficult to describe this visit as “historic” for three reasons. First: the presidency of Donald Trump of the United States of America has been for only a few months , so his visit is not seen as historic despite his first foreign visit was started to the Saudi Arab kingdom .Second : Trump,s visit to the Kingdom is not the first of its kind for the President of the United States of America as it was preceded by a number of former US presidents and the last of them was the former US President Barack Obama. Third: The US-Saudi relations are a strategic partnership that its foundations were set during the historic meeting between the former King Abdul Aziz bin Saud and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the board of the ship Quincy in 1945. The relations between the two countries have seen through their long history several stations mostly were excellent, although they were not free in many cases from what disturbs it , but the two sides have shown a desire consistently to overcome the difficult moments and to have things back to normal as things tended toward tension.
The question of choice of US President Donald Trump Saudi Arabia to be the first stop on his first tour outside the United States is an indication of the start of a new phase in US-Saudi relations, which saw a state of “tension” in the era of former US President Barack Obama. Therefore, according to these reasons the visit of allies or strategic partners to each other can not be described as historic. But when the visit really can be described as historic under these difficult circumstances in the Middle East?
Historic visit lies in the event of the King Salman bin Abdulaziz to visit Tehran to meet with Mr. Ali Khamenei, the super leader (Murshid) of the Iranian revolution, or just the opposite. The relationship – as it is known- between Saudi Arabia and Iran is drawn by competition in Iraq and Lebanon and a proxy war in Syria and Yemen. Their meeting could pave the way for the settlement of the conflict, which does not serve the interests of the peoples and countries of the Middle East as this type of visit is – without doubt- historic because it has never held a bilateral summit brought together between any king of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Mr. Ali Khamenei. How much our region is in need of this kind of historical visit and summit to resolve the conflicts between the two states with a significant regional and sectarian weight that can not be ignored.
This kind of visit or summit is not a divination but it is achievable if a diplomatic sincere effort is provided to resolve the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the history of international relations tells us that there is a historical visits have already taken place, and contributed to the settlement of the conflict or reduce it, and open a new page in the relations of states with each other. One of these visits, the historic visit by former US President Richard Nixon to the People’s Republic of China in February 1972, and his meeting with former Chinese leader Mao Zedong, Nixon is the first US president to visit China, for the purpose of opening a new page with the People,s Republic of China , after the relationship between the two countries characterized by conflict because of the 1950 Korean war, and US government’s military ongoing support to the Republic of National China (Taiwan), and the Soviet –Chinese support to the Republic of North Vietnam, that it belongs to communism, and the visit was , which took place in the midst of the cold war and at a time that each of the two countries puts the other one on the list of its enemies , the major step towards the normalization of relations between Washington and Beijing officially.
The historic visits also include the visit which divided the Arab public opinion and is still going on now, some looked at it as a slit for the Arab alignment and betrayal of the companions of war and stabbed in the back of brothers supported Egypt in the 1973 war with war ammunition, money and weapon of oil. While others viewed it as a far-sighted , and out of date , conscious reading of the map of powers after the defeat of 1967 and after the weak factors that began eating at the body of the Soviet ally, after reaching a conviction confirmed by the 1973 war that “impossible” to achieve a military victory decisively against Israel because of its power, especially nuclear ones, as well as US political, military and financial unlimited support . We mean here the visit of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1977 to the occupied Jerusalem and meeting Israeli officials, and two years after the visit, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty, and the two countries exchanged diplomatic representation. The visit of the Trump to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which was described in the media and diplomatically as “historic” it is just a visit in order to correct the strategic partnership in the course of US-Saudi relations. The historic visit is the visit of Tehran to Riyadh or vice versa.
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic studies