Before his visit to Saudi Arabia in May last year, Donald Trump and his entourage talked portentously about creating an “Arab Nato” to counter the regional ambitions of Iran. What happened next takes more than a tweet to describe.
Mr Trump was delighted to boast of $110bn in arms sales to the Saudis. Eighteen months later Riyadh has made good on about a tenth of that exaggerated sum. Before some 50 Sunni Arab and African heads of state, the US president launched a Saudi-led Sunni alliance against Shia Iran. But Saudi Arabia, urged on by the hawkish United Arab Emirates, instead decided to blockade Qatar.
Qatar is part of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman that, along with Egypt and Jordan, is supposed to make up the putative Arab Nato — working title, the Middle East Strategic Alliance, or Mesa. So, not a promising start.