Chitchat Jethro on Trump

Jethro: Brother PJ, I have come long and far to seek guidance as my kinfolk and fellow members of the great gospel are confused.
Preacher Jones: Speak feebly brother Jethro

Jethro: Why is President Trump visiting the sand niggers, the jews and then the Eyeties. Surely he knows the feelings of his most ardent supporters.
PJ: Fuck me dead Brother Jethro, I too am lost.

Jethro: He is also visiting the Pope, the leader of the Catholics who are not true Christians.
PJ: Fuck me dead again Brother Jethro, you are right.

Jethro: This ain't right Brother PJ, Aunty Mae who is my sister and also my brother's wife is down right depressed by all this. She stopped smoking her pipe and that's not a good sign.
PJ: Brother Jethro, do you think President Trump has some kind of plan behind all these?

Jethro: You know brother PJ, I am not one to cuss like the polecat but this is dastardly.
PJ: May I suggest that we take your buggy and head to Washington to get the answers.

Jethro: Brother, my family and the members of the great gospel did ask me to head to Washington in great haste. But they want me to meet the Black one.
PJ: Surely not the nigger.

Jethro: We think we have made a mistake. We want to seek his help. He was a good nigger and now we have seen the light as plain as day.
PJ: Fuck me dead one more time. I now have seen everything.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...kurdish-population-shia-muslims-a7742276.html

This is the aim of Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia

Robert Fisk Thursday 18 May 2017 10:00 BST
The Sunni Saudis and the Gulf kings possess immense wealth, the only religion that Trump really respects, and they want to destroy Shia Iran, Syria, the Hezbollah and the Houthis – which is a simple ‘anti-terrorist’ story for the Americans


Donald Trump sets off on Friday to create the fantasy of an Arab Nato. There will be dictators aplenty to greet him in Riyadh, corrupt autocrats and thugs and torturers and head choppers. There will be at least one zombie president – the comatose, undead Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria who neither speaks nor, apparently, hears any more – and, of course, one totally insane president, Donald Trump. The aim, however, is simple: to prepare the Sunni Muslims of the Middle East for war against the Shia Muslims. With help from Israel, of course.

Even for those used to the insanity of Arab leadership – not to mention those Westerners who have still to grasp that the US President is himself completely off his rocker – the Arab-Muslim (Sunni) summit in Saudi Arabia is almost beyond comprehension. From Pakistan and Jordan and Turkey and Egypt and Morocco and 42 other minareted capitals, they are to come so that the effete and ambitious Saudis can lead their Islamic crusade against “terrorism” and Shiism. The fact that most of the Middle East’s “terrorism” – Isis and al-Qaeda, aka the Nusrah Front – have their fountainhead in the very nation to which Trump is travelling, must and will be ignored. Never before in Middle Eastern history has such a “kumidia alakhta” – quite literally “comedy of errors” in Arabic – been staged.

On top of all this, they have to listen to Trump’s ravings on peace and Islamic “extremism”, surely the most preposterous speech to be uttered by a US president since he is going to have to pretend that Iran is extremist – when it is Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi Isis clones who are destroying Islam’s reputation throughout the world. All this while he is fostering war.

For Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (henceforth MbS) wants to lead his Sunni tribes – plus Iraq if possible, which is why Shia Prime Minister Abadi has been invited from Baghdad – against the serpent of “terrorist” Shia Iran, the dark (Shia) “terrorist” Alawite regime of Bashar al-Assad, the “terrorist” Shia Lebanese Hezbollah and the aggressive “terrorist” Shia Houthis of Yemen. As for the Gulf states’ own Shia minorities and other recalcitrants, well, off with their heads.

After all, that’s what the Saudis did to the prominent Saudi Shia leader Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr last year: they cut his head from his body, Isis-style, in a classic bit of Wahhabi decapitation, along with 47 other “terrorists”. And any powerful Shias in neighbouring Gulf countries will be cut down, too – which is what happened to Bahrain’s Shia majority when the Saudi army moved in to occupy the island in 2011 at the “request” of its Sunni ruler.

And you can see why America’s disgraceful President, a man who truly falls into the regional pantheon of raving loonies – he surely ranks among the Gaddafis and Ahmadinejads of the Middle East – goes along with this. The fact that Isis – Trump’s mortal enemy and the strategic adversary of his defence chiefs – is a creature of the same Salafist cult as Saudi Arabia, is neither here nor there. The Sunni Saudis and the Gulf kings and princes possess immense wealth, the only religion that Trump really respects, and they want to destroy Shia Iran and Syria and the Hezbollah and the Houthis – which is a simple “anti-terrorist” story for the Americans – and this means that Trump can give MbS and his chums $100bn (£77bn) of US missiles, planes, ships and ammo for the war-to-come. America will be happy. And Israel will be happy.

I guess Crown Prince Jared Kushner thinks he can handle this end of the Arab-Nato alliance, though the Israelis themselves will be perfectly happy to watch the Sunnis and Shia fight each other, just as they did during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war when the US supported Sunni Saddam – albeit that his army was mostly Shia – and the Israelis furnished US missiles to the Shia Iranians. Already, the Israelis have distinguished themselves by bombing the Syrian army, the Hezbollah and the Iranians in the Syrian war – while leaving Isis untouched and giving medical assistance to al-Qaeda (Nusrah) on Golan.

Much has been made (rightly) of MbS’s threat to ensure that the battle is “in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia”. But, typically, few bothered to listen to Iran’s ferocious reply to the Saudi threat. It came promptly from the Iranian defence minister, Hossein Dehghan. “We warn them [the Saudis] against doing anything ignorant,” he said, “but if they do something ignorant, we will leave nowhere untouched apart from Mecca and Medina.” In other words, it’s time to start building air raid shelters in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dhahran, Aramco headquarters and all those other locations dear to American hearts.

Indeed, it’s difficult not to recall an almost identical Sunni hubris – almost four decades ago – to that of MbS today. The latter boasts of his country’s wealth and his intention to diversify, enrich and broaden its economic base. In 1980, Saddam was determined to do the same. He used Iraq’s oil wealth to cover the country in super-highways, modern technology, state-of-the-art healthcare and hospitals and modern communications. Then he kicked off his “lightning war” with Iran. It impoverished his oil-rich nation, humiliated him in the eyes of his fellow Arabs – who had to cough up the cash for his disastrous eight-year adventure – led to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, sanctions and the ultimate Anglo-US invasion of 2003 and, for Saddam, the hangman’s noose.

Yet this leaves out the Syrian dimension. Sharmine Narwani, a former senior associate of St Antony’s College – and an antidote for all those sickened by the mountebank think-tank “experts” of Washington – pointed out this week that US support for Kurdish forces fighting under the dishonest label of “Syrian Democratic Forces” are, by advancing on Raqqa, helping to cut Syria off from Iraq. And that Kurdish forces are now reported as “retaking” Christian or Muslim Arab towns in the Nineveh province of Iraq, which were never Kurdish in the first place. Kurds now regard Qamishleh, and Hassakeh province in Syria as part of “Kurdistan”, although they represent a minority in many of these areas. Thus US support for these Kurdish groups – to the fury of Sultan Erdogan and the few Turkish generals still loyal to him – is helping to both divide Syria and divide Iraq.

This cannot and will not last. Not just because the Kurds are born to be betrayed – and will be betrayed by the Americans even if the present maniac-in-charge is impeached, just as they were betrayed to Saddam in the days of Kissinger – but because Turkey’s importance (with or without its own demented leader) will always outweigh Kurdish claims to statehood. Both are Sunnis, and therefore “safe” allies until one of them – inevitably the Kurds – must be abandoned.

Meanwhile, you can forget justice, civil rights, sickness and death. Cholera has quite a grip on Yemen now, courtesy of the criminal bombing attacks of the Saudis – ably assisted by their American allies long before Trump took over – and scarcely any of the Muslim leaders whom Trump meets in Riyadh do not have torturers at work back home to ensure that some of their citizens wish they had never been born. It will be a relief for the fruitcake president to leave Israel for the Vatican, albeit given only a brief visitation to – and short shrift by – a real peacemaker.

That only leaves one nation out of the loop of this glorious charivari: Russia. But be sure Vladimir Putin comprehends all too well what is going on in Riyadh. He will watch the Arab Nato fall apart. His foreign minister Lavrov understands Syria and Iran better than the feckless Tillerson. And his security officers are deep inside Syria. Besides, if he needs any more intelligence information, he has only to ask Trump.


Rouhani’s victory is good news for Iran, but bad news for Trump and his Sunni allies
The Saudis will be appalled that a (comparatively) reasonable Iranian has won a (comparatively) free election that almost none of the 50 dictators gathering to meet Trump in Riyadh would ever dare to hold

So it’s a good win for the Iranian regime – and its enormous population of young people – and a bad win for Trump’s regime, which would far rather have had an ex-judicial killer as Iranian president so that Americans would find it easy to hate him. Maybe Hassan Rouhani’s final-week assault on his grim rival candidate and his supporters – “those whose main decisions have only been executions and imprisonment over the past 38 years” – paid off. Who among Iran’s under 25s, more than 40 per cent of the population, would have wanted to vote for Ebrahim Raisi whose hands had touched the execution certificates of up to 8,000 political prisoners in 1988?

So the man who signed Iran’s nuclear agreement with the United States, who struggled (often vainly, it has to be said) to reap the economic rewards of this nuclear bomb “truce” with the West, who believed in a civil society not unlike that of former president Mohamed Khatami – who supported him in the election – won with 57 per cent of the vote, backed by 23½ million of the 41 million who cast their ballot. The corrupt and censorious old men of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the bazaaris and the rural poor – the cannon fodder of the Iran-Iraq war as they often are in elections – have been told they no longer belong to the future.

But what a contrast this election has been to the vast congress of dictators and cut-throat autocrats greeting Donald Trump in Riyadh – just as the Iranian election results were announced. Save for Lebanon and Tunisia and Pakistan, almost every Muslim leader gathered in Saudi Arabia treats democracy as a joke or a farce – hence the 96 per cent victories of their leaders – or an irrelevancy. They are there to encourage Sunni Saudi Arabia’s thirst for war against Shia Iran and its allies. Which is why the Saudis will be appalled that a (comparatively) reasonable Iranian has won a (comparatively) free election that almost none of the 50 dictators gathering to meet Trump in Riyadh would ever dare to hold.

There are those who will remember, of course, that executions proceeded apace under Rouhani’s previous presidency – though not on the Golgotha scale of the 1988 executions – and that Rouhani’s revolutionary credentials are clear: just before Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi invasion of 1980, he managed to re-organise Iran’s tattered post-revolutionary army. But if Raisi symbolised the repressive past, Rouhani, however imperfectly, represents the future. For now.

Because everything depends on how he will respond to the madness of the Trump regime and its willingness to support the Sunni war machine with more than $100bn of weapons against Iran and its allies and friends. Rouhani must pray that Iran’s response can be political – he does at least have the satisfaction of knowing the voter turnout in Iran this week was 70 per cent against America’s miserable 58 per cent in the Trump-Clinton election last year. Iranians are a very political people and take their presidential polls seriously, even if only six out of 1,600 potential candidates were allowed to stand.

As they will the next man to be chosen as Supreme Leader when Khamenei departs. This critical position – without any precedent in Islam, it is now regarded as untouchable – could go to Ayatollah Sayed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, a man who, as head of the judiciary, reduced some of Iran’s more vicious punishments without being a true reformer. But this was true of old Hashemi Rafsanjani, the ex-president and Richelieu of Iran who died earlier this year. No one in Iranian politics can talk of reform and civil society without acknowledging the revolution and the martyrs of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

It was in the aftermath of this First World War-style conflict that the mass executions began. The only prominent cleric to stand against them was Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, whose courageous and moral decision cost him the Supreme Leadership. He spent the rest of his life under virtual house arrest. Khamenei took his place. And among the brutal men who then showed their “Islamisism” in the execution chamber, a massacre of prisoners that came to be known as the “national disaster”, Raisi could not expunge his name. Perhaps his only compensation today is that many of the Sunni Arab leaders gathered in Riyadh to applaud America’s mad President have almost as much blood on their hands. But they got “elected”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iran-election-rouhani-saudi-arabia-trump-bad-news-a7746146.html

Sandpaper diplomacy...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/...lion-in-infrastructure-mostly-in-us.html?_r=0

Saudi Arabia to Invest $20 Billion in Infrastructure, Mostly in U.S.
As President Trump begins his first presidential trip abroad in Saudi Arabia, an investment company run by one of his top supporters, the billionaire Stephen A. Schwarzman, has secured an enormous investment from the Middle Eastern kingdom.

The company, Blackstone, which Mr. Schwarzman helped found, said on Saturday that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund had committed $20 billion to a new investment fund aimed at infrastructure projects, primarily in the United States.

The commitment is about half of the capital Blackstone plans to raise for the fund. All told, including potential borrowed money, the new fund could invest more than $100 billion in infrastructure projects, the company said in its statement.

The fund was one of several business deals between an American company and Saudi Arabia announced after Mr. Trump’s arrival. At a ceremony in Riyadh on Saturday, General Electric said it had agreements for $15 billion worth of projects.

And the Trump administration helped line up $110 billion worth of arms deals, negotiations in which senior officials played prominent roles. For instance, Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, personally called the chief executive of Lockheed Martin to cut the price of a radar system.

Lockheed Martin has since announced, among other deals, a $6 billion commitment to building 150 Black Hawk helicopters in the kingdom.

In its statement on Saturday, Blackstone said it had begun discussions with Saudi Arabia about a year ago. The American investment company said it had already invested in over $40 billion worth of projects tied to infrastructure over the last 15 years.

Investing in American infrastructure has been advocated by lawmakers and business leaders for some time, with both Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton endorsing modernizing aging airports, bridges and energy systems through public-private partnerships.

Yasir Al Rumayyan, the managing director of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, added: “This potential investment reflects our positive views around the ambitious infrastructure initiatives being undertaken in the United States as announced by President Trump, and the strategic opportunity for the Public Investment Fund to achieve long-term returns given historical investment shortfalls.”

For Saudi Arabia, the new fund is yet another step toward diversifying its enormous oil-based economy. The kingdom has already announced what it calls its Vision 2030 plan, under which the country has prepared to list its state-owned oil producer, Saudi Aramco, on the public markets.

Earlier on Saturday, the Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank announced the first end of the first round of fund-raising for its Vision Fund, a planned $100 billion technology investment vehicle to which the kingdom had pledged $45 billion.

I don't think there been any time in the last 50years that the World faced a situation like today and its centres around one man. I don't think people even know there is a full blown war in Yemen. Much of air travellers that transit daily in their thousands thru Dubai and Abu Dhabi are not aware that the UAE armed forces are using a base in the horn of Africa to launch attack after attack against the Iranian proxy and now they are acquiring a second base. I don't think the Americans back home let alone the wider world can reconcile why the Saudis have given the man who maligned Muslims with a broad brush stroke over the last 2 years was given the highest civilian award by the custodian of the 2 most venerated mosques in Islam.

The Jethros are not only in the Appalachians but the World around. Halliburton might ring a bell as their CEO was with the American delegation. The World has yet to fathom why Pakistan a failed state is the single biggest recipient of the Belt and Road initiative.

Imagine the sister is selling American visas in China while the brother was in the advance team in Saudi finalising the $110B deal and his wife ( Trump's daughter) is also there for god knows what.

And what has Mr Son and King Salman have in common to join forces on a technology fund.

And pointedly why is the star of a reality show thinks that he can solve the long standing conundrum - Palestine and the Middle East.

scroobal said:

I don't think there been any time in the last 50years that the World faced a situation like today and its centres around one man. I don't think people even know there is a full blown war in Yemen. Much of air travellers that transit daily in their thousands thru Dubai and Abu Dhabi are not aware that the UAE armed forces are using a base in the horn of Africa to launch attack after attack against the Iranian proxy and now they are acquiring a second base. I don't think the Americans back home let alone the wider world can reconcile why the Saudis have given the man who maligned Muslims with a broad brush stroke over the last 2 years was given the highest civilian award by the custodian of the 2 most venerated mosques in Islam.

The Jethros are not only in the Appalachians but the World around. Halliburton might ring a bell as their CEO was with the American delegation. The World has yet to fathom why Pakistan a failed state is the single biggest recipient of the Belt and Road initiative.

Imagine the sister is selling American visas in China while the brother was in the advance team in Saudi finalising the $110B deal and his wife ( Trump's daughter) is also there for god knows what.

And what has Mr Son and King Salman have in common to join forces on a technology fund.

And pointedly why is the star of a reality show thinks that he can solve the long standing conundrum - Palestine and the Middle East.

Click to expand...

As for the UAE attacks in Yemen these are being fronted by their hired guns rather than actual Emiratis (each Emirati life is too precious and they are too tiny as a people to risk such losses) - so you have a hotpotch "UAE" force made up of Somalians, Sudanese, Pakistanis, Egyptians who serve in the UAE arm forces (they even went to Hadramut's Wadi Duan to hunt "magicians and sorcerers" yesterday). They also have hired mercenaries (latest arrival in Al Mukalla Hadramut province) to "protect" South Yemeni oil...the Saudis have also just appointed US-approved Yemen President General "Baba Al Qaeda" Ali Muhsin Al Ahmar - never mind that he was implicated in a massive corruption n the the oil sector by the WSJ (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704166204575608580089662298) - but yeah, nobody know or cares that the most heavily armed civilian population in the Middle East/ second most heavily armed civilian population in the world are engaged in a war at the moment: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/02/gun-control-yemen-style/273058/ or that they have already fractured into 3 separate states (http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/yemen-war-how-independence-calls-could-split-coalition-1812416955)

Can't wait for the next instalment of this show - Trump Takes Jerusalem... (http://www.newsweek.com/trump-cance...after-israel-blocks-helicopter-landing-611287) http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/US-cancels-festive-King-David-dinner-with-Israelis-492406

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...orders-ministers-attend-trump-israeli-arrival

'Angry' Netanyahu orders ministers to attend Trump reception
Israeli media reports say prime minister was angered to learn a number of ministers had planned to skip US president’s arrival

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has reportedly been forced to order his ministers to attend the airport reception for Donald Trump on Monday, after discovering that a number had planned not to attend.

According to reports in the Israeli media, an angry Netanyahu was informed on Sunday that party heads and a number of ministers planned to skip the reception after the White House had asked for the meet and greet to be shortened to the two countries’ anthems and handshakes only between Netanyahu and Trump.

Haaretz, the Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post all carried stories, some quoting an identified Israeli government official on the instruction from Netanyahu, amid claims that ministers had been upset at not being included in the receiving line on the airport tarmac.

The row is the latest in a series of controversies to hit the planned visit of the US president, which officials in Israel have privately characterised as often haphazard.

Trump will arrive for the whirlwind visit to Israel and to the occupied Palestinian territories on Monday, amid mounting questions over what – if any – practical steps he will take to advance his “ultimate peace deal” between the two sides.

Overshadowed by the escalating scandals surrounding him, the US president will meet Netanyahu and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, during 26 hours of events.

Trump will arrive from Riyadh on Air Force One just before noon at Ben Gurion airport, accompanied by his wife, Melania, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared, before flying by helicopter to Jerusalem.

During his visit, Trump will briefly visit the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City, dine with Netanyahu and make a private visit to the Western Wall, Judaism’s most holy site.

Then on Tuesday morning Trump will meet Abbas in Bethlehem before flying on to Rome.

Speaking at his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, ahead of Trump’s arrival, Netanyahu said: “I will discuss with President Trump ways to strengthen our primary and steadfast ties with the United States. We will improve our security ties, which we are strengthening on a daily basis. We will also discuss ways to advance the peace.”

The visit will take place under tight security with about 10,000 police securing the Israeli part of the visit, which will be accompanied by road closures.

Trump will spend a single night in a suite in the King David hotel protected by glass capable of withstanding a rocket-propelled grenade and a poison gas attack.

The visit comes at a tense time ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War in early June – which for Palestinians marks five decades of occupation – and amid a continuing hunger strike by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails that has prompted sometimes violent demonstrations on the West Bank.

Trump’s problems at home are also seen by some as having cast a pall over the proceedings, with Dan Shapiro, the former US ambassador to Israel under Barack Obama, predicting: “I think the trip’s in a lot of jeopardy [in] being able to be productive because of all the chaos and controversy that’s going on in Washington.”

Despite the signs posted in Jerusalem neighbourhoods welcoming Trump as “a friend of Zion” and calling on hims to “make Israel great”, his visit is also causing anxieties for many on Israel’s right for whom Trump’s election was seen initially as the cause for unbridled celebration.

Since his inauguration on 20 January, those same rightwingers fear that Trump has drifted towards an ever more conventional US foreign policy position on the peace process.

Far from moving the US embassy to Jerusalem on his first day in office – as he promised – Trump has kicked that issue into the long grass while expressing a sometimes garbled objection to Israeli settlement building.

That has seen David Friedman, the controversial and pro-settler new US ambassador to Israel who arrived last week, move quickly to reassure Netanyahu’s government that Trump remains as firmly committed to Israel as ever, even as he suggested that no announcement on the US embassy would be made until after Trump’s visit.

The messaging on the Israel-Palestine peace process has also been downbeat, with one US official telling Haaretz on Sunday that the height of Trump’s ambitions for his “ultimate deal” right now appears to involve no more than encouraging the two sides to play nicely to create conditions for direct talks.

“The president has made a general statement regarding his view on settlements and he hopes the Israeli government takes it into account,” the official said.

“He was also pretty direct with President Abbas regarding what they need to do regarding incitement and the payments to families of terrorists. He has been quite clear about that and he will be clear about that during the visit.”

Instead, the expectation will be that Trump will neither outline a vision for a framework for the peace process nor any concrete steps.

What noises that have emerged from reported leaks about Trump’s plans to advance peace suggest an implausible mishmash of ideas – including the idea that Israel be allowed to continue settlement building during talks.

On the Israeli side the most significant outcome is a proposal for improving the economic quality of life for Palestinians on the West Bank, including longer opening hours for the Allenby Bridge crossing to Jordan, more building permits in the so-called area C and suggestions for new industrial zones on the West Bank.

Lacking any clear prospects for a breakthrough, the runup to the visit has been dominated by mini – and sometimes concocted – controversies including the comment by a US official telling Netanyahu’s office that the Western Wall was not in Israeli territory.

Trump will, however, become the first US president to visit the wall, a fact that was being spun last week by Jonathan Schanzer of the rightwing US Foundation for Defence of Democracies as a pro-Israel step.

“I think that if Trump himself goes to the Western Wall and does it with Israeli officials, even Israeli security, there’s going to be very little argument over who controls it – certainly [when] going there to acknowledge it as a Jewish holy site,” said Schanzer.

On the Palestinian side, officials appear content that the worst predictions regarding Trump on the Middle East – fuelled by his own campaign rhetoric – have not materialised.

“We’re happy that, contrary to initial expectations, the Trump administration has been willing to listen,” one official said. “Our readout is that Trump was surprised by Abbas’s declaration of his willingness to make peace, having being told the opposite by some of his advisers.”

Trump: ISIS, Al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas Responsible for Generations of Vanished Dreams
Trump gives first speech on foreign soil in Saudi Arabia, expected to cast the challenge of extremism as a 'battle between good and evil'
Amir Tibon and Reuters May 21, 2017 5:56 PM

U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the leaders of 50 Muslim-majority countries on Sunday afternoon, in his first speech on foreign soil since taking office.

Trump began his speech by thanking Saudi Arabia for hosting the summit. "I am honored to be received by such gracious hosts. I have also heard about the splendor of your kingdom, but words cannot do justice to the hospitality you showed to us from the moment we arrived," said Trump.

Trump spoke about the historical partnership between the two countries going back to the days of King Abdul-Aziz and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. "Today we begin a new chapter that will bring lasting benefits to all of our citizens." Trump also thanked all the heads of state who convened in Riyadh to attend the summit.

"Our time together will bring many blessings to both your people and to mine."

Trump continued: "I'm here to deliver a message of friendship, hope and love. I chose to make my first foreign trip to the heart of the Muslim world. In my inaugural address I pledged that America will not seek to impose our way of life on others, but to outstretch our hand for a vision of peace, security and prosperity. Our goal is a coalition of nations who share the aim of stamping out extremism.

>> Read more: Trump just sold billions of dollars of sophisticated weapons to a state he said masterminded 9/11 / Analysis ■ Fuming Netanyahu tells ministers Trump ceremony attendance mandatory >>

"This historic and undprecedented gathering of leaders, is a symbol to the world of our shared resolve."

Trump then announced the results of his talks with Saudi officials. "My meetings with King Salman, the crown prince and the deputy crown prince, have been filled with tremendous cooperation. Yesterday we signed a historic agreement with the kingdom that will invest almost 400 billion dollars in our two countries and create hundreds of thousands of jobs."

"We will be sure to help our Saudi friends to get a good deal from our great American defense companies," continued Trump. "We've started discussions with many of the countries present today on advancing security and stability across the Middle East."

Trump then turned to security issues, saying that "Muslim-majority countries must takes the lead in combating radicalization." He also thanked the Saudi king for "powerful leadership" on this issue.

"We're not here to lecture, to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be or how to worship. We are here to offer partnership," said Trump.

"We must be united in pursuing the one goal that transcends every other consideration - to vanquish terrorism. Young Muslim boys and girls should be able to grow up free from fear, safe from violence and innocent from hatred. They should have the chance to build new Arab prosperity for themselves. It has to be done and we have to let them do it.

"This future can only be achieved by defeating terrorism, and the ideology that defines it."

Trump noted that terrorism has statistically affected Arab countries more than any other, saying, "The deadliest toll from terrorism has been exacted on the innocent people of Arab, Muslim and Middle Eastern nations."

"Some estimates say that more than 95% of the victims of terrorism, are themselves Muslims. It is a tragedy of epic proportions. No description of the suffering can begin to capture its full measure. ISIS, Al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas - it must be counted not just in the number of dead, but in generations of vanished dreams."

Trump walked the audience through a tour of the Middle East mentioning all the spots of potential, that have suffered from "bloodshed and terror." He mentioned many countries in the region, but not Israel.

"Terrorists do not worship god, they worship death. If we do not act against this organized terror, we know what will be the end result," said Trump. "The futures of many generations will be sadly squandered.

"We can only overcome the forces of evil if the forces of good are united and strong. Terrorism has spread all across the world, but the path to peace begins right here, on this ancient soil, in this sacred land," said Trump. "America is prepared to stand with you, but the nations of the Middle East cannot wait on america to crush this power for them.

"Drive them out of your places of worship, communities, holy land, and out of this earth. For our part, america is committed to adjust our strategies. We will discard those strategies that did not work, and will apply new ones. We are adopting an principled realism. Our friends will never question our support and our enemies will never doubt our determination."

Trump praised a number of countries int the region for their contribution to the fight against terrorism, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the UAE, Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait.

"We need to stand together against the murder of women, the persecution of Jews and the slaughter of Christians," Trump continued.

"If you choose the path of terror, your life will be empty, brief and your soul will be fully condemned. Political leaders must speak out to affirm the same ideas."

Saudi King Salman, who spoke before Trump, used his speech to attack Iran, which is Saudi Arabia's main rival in the Middle East. "Iran has turned down all good neighborliness," he declared, adding that Iran has been "at the spearhead of terrorism" in the world ever since the Islamic revolution of 1979. He said that Iran is the main source of instability and violence in the region, and thanked Trump for his commitment to fight terrorism.

Trump's Sunday speech, was expected to cast the challenge of extremism as a "battle between good and evil" and to urge Arab leaders to "drive out the terrorists from your places of worship," according to excerpts released by the White House beforehand.

Trump, whose campaign was frequently punctuated by bouts of anti-Islamic rhetoric, has softened some of his language about Islam. Though during the campaign he repeatedly stressed the need to say the words "radical Islamic terrorism" — and criticized his opponent, Hillary Clinton, for not doing so — that phrase is not included in the draft.

The speech comes amid a renewed courtship of the United States' Arab allies as Trump held individual meetings with leaders of several nations, including Egypt and Qatar, before participating in a roundtable with the Gulf Cooperation Council and joining Saudi King Salman in opening Riyadh's new anti-terrorism center.

http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.790678

I just saw him giving that speech on CNN. It was quite simplistic - creation of jobs (for the american supporters back home), getting a good deal for Saudis from US defence companies courtesy of his son-in-law who was working the phones from Riyadh, singled out Iran, asking the 55 countries in the region to drive the terrorists from the their land.

I thought he should have used the opportunity to spell out foreign policy or doctrine for the region and make his mark in history. Clearly State Dept did not craft the speech but Bannon and company. In the end how he helped to negotiate the price took the spotlight to some extent.