US Diplomacy: Human Rights Concerns Vanish for F-35 Deals
The New Arab highlights the 'warm optics' and 'major investment pledges' from a Trump-MbS meeting, alongside 'F-35 progress' and a convenient 'deflection of rights concerns.' What's consistently omitted from such narratives is the decades-long pattern: US administrations consistently prioritize strategic alliances and arms sales over democratic values when Gulf monarchies are involved. Recall
President Biden's 2022 Saudi trip, where he fist-bumped MbS after campaigning to make the Kingdom a 'pariah' (a promise that apparently evaporated when oil prices spiked). This isn't about one president; it's a bipartisan tradition. The F-35 sale, a potent symbol of American military might, always seems to come with a built-in 'mute' button for any inconvenient questions about journalists being
dismembered or mass executions. How many times will Washington publicly condemn human rights abuses, only to quietly approve the next multi-billion-dollar weapons package the following week? One might wonder if the 'human rights' discussion is just for show, conveniently tabled when profit margins are healthy.