Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 7/22/22 Doug Bandow on Biden’s Saudi Trip and Awful Middle East Policy

Episode Date: July 23, 2022

Scott talks with Cato Institute Senior Fellow Doug Bandow about an article he wrote recently for The American Conservative. Bandow gives his take on Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia. He thinks the Saudis were purposefully disrespectful to the U.S. President and that Biden just took it. Bandow explains the ways Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been changing how Saudi Arabia oppresses its people — rolling back religious tyranny while expanding political tyranny. Finally, Scott and Bandow take a step back and examine the Biden Administration’s approach to the entire Middle East region, which Bandow says is really just a continuation of Trump’s policies.  Discussed on the show: “Joe Biden Grovels to the Saudis” (The American Conservative) “Biden says he confronted Saudis directly on Khashoggi” (The Washington Post) Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a regular contributor at Forbes Magazine, the National Interest, Antiwar.com, and elsewhere. He’s on Twitter @Doug_Bandow. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton dot for you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show okay guys on the line i've got cato institute senior fellow dog bondo and of course he writes for us at antiwar dot com and here he is in the american conservative magazine that's the american

conservative.com. Joe Biden grovels to the Saudis. Oh, say it ain't so, Doug. He wouldn't do anything like that. America's the empire and Saudi Arabia is the client state. I read that in a magazine somewhere. Yeah, you would think that. I mean, you look at the countries, you know, you'd think the U.S. was a superpower and would be the one that would kind of order the Saudis around, but it turns out it's the other way around. Yeah, it's funny that. It's just the energy, but you know what, we don't even import that much oil from the Saudis, do we? No, one of the great things with fracking and other energy developments has been that the U.S. has become a major energy exporter. You know, the Saudis provide more oil to the Chinese, at least they did until the Chinese started buying a lot of Russian oil, and the Europeans.

So the question is, why should we protect oil for China? It's a very strange idea that you would think after all these years finally, we could say we don't have to suck. up to the Saudis anymore. But it turns out this president kind of went the whole way, his little fist bump plus begging for oil, which came to not. I mean, the Saudis treated him with contempt. Yeah, before

they wouldn't even take his phone call, and then you say here, they didn't even greet him with a red carpet kind of treatment when he landed. The president of the world empire? He got, what, the mayor came out? Exactly. Your governor, I think it was the governor of the province. You know, and then

when he talks about how we asked him. Which that's way, pardon me, but in diplomatic language that's a serious deliberate f you to the present united states isn't it oh yeah i mean when this is supposed to be your most important ally and you don't send the king you don't send the sun you know i mean that is this is this is downscale this is you know even the foreign minister you know that's right you can catch a taxi to the uh the conference center you seriously all right i'm sorry so go ahead because i interrupted you to train of thought but i just wanted to zoom in on that one point because that's one of the other points was

the president tried to assure everybody, oh, don't worry, I told him how upset I was about, you know, the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi. And the Saudi foreign ministers said, well, I didn't hear that. He'd be calling the president a liar. Of course, we know the president does have a problem remembering things that never happened. And then, you know, MBS, you know, good old slice and dice himself, you know, criticized the U.S. energy program and all the green energy and you know, climate change and stuff. So he's out there trashing the president's energy program. I mean, it's quite extraordinary.

In other words, he's saying, oh, if you're complaining that the price of energy is so high, then forget Saudi Arabia. Why don't you pump your own damn oil? That's right. What is he's saying? Yeah, this is your problem. I mean, you've done this. Don't blame us.

And by the way, you talk about Crown Prince Bonesaw here, as I like to call them, slice and dice. I like that. Yeah, this guy. one hell of a cold-blooded murder, but he's still only, what, like 35 or something, 37? He's going to be the King of Saudi Arabia until the CIA kills him someday or something, right? That's right, or unless one of his in-laws or somebody does it. I mean, an awful lot of members of the royal family don't like him, but I assume he has some pretty

good security around him. I mean, he's a tough one. You know, the old system, you kind of shared power with all the brothers and everybody got a piece of the action. And this one, it's like, oh, boy, you better not. cross this guy. You know, the former crown prince, his cousin, you know, is apparently in under house arrest and nobody sees him. We actually don't even know whether he's really alive. Then he went off on some foreign trip and he took along the son of his cousin, you know, who had to kind of show the faith

and we support the crown prince. I mean, it's brutal that he did that with Jamal Khashoggi. You know, I mean, he chops up Khashoggi and then brings in Khashoggi's kids. Oh, it's so sad what happened to your father oh i i have my condolences i mean what a ruthless cold-blooded guy yeah speaking of ruthless and cold-blooded you see the washington post then had a thing about yeah kashoggi's wife says that he would want the u.s to forgive mohammed bin salman for this and to not let it you know spoil our wonderful relationship exactly that's amazing uh they just have no qualms about putting something like that out there. And by the way, when I say Washington Post, that's not in this case just interchangeable with the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. This is the paper that Khashoggi wrote for, spinning for

the Crown Prince what murdered him. That's right. It's just incredible to see. God dang. Shocking, but not surprising, but still shocking. That's my disorder, Doug. I think maybe you got the same thing as me. It's still shocking enough to keep you motivated to keep complaining about it. even though you're never really surprised that they would do such things. But, boy, they do continue to do such things, you know? Well, it's shocking but not surprising. That's really the terrible aspect of it. Is that these days, I still occasionally, I do, there is some shock involved, but it never surprises me.

You know, it's just, oh, wow. I mean, we're doing a little extra today that, I mean, the notion that you turn your, you kind of consulate into a killing field. I mean, it really is quite extraordinary. You know, I'm sure he's not the first person who's been killed in somebody's consulate. But they're just something. So, you know, they use the brother of the crown prince, you know, another one of the princes, who was then ambassador to the United States to a shirk, a shoggi, oh, yes, everything will be fine. Just go to the consulate.

We'll get the paperwork done about his divorce and then he could marry. Oh, yeah, no, no, everything will be fine. I mean, it's just, I mean, these guys are just, you know, Americans don't get them. I mean, you know, even our cold-blooded people, you know, they believe in killing I'll be like ordering the U.S. military to bomb another country, but they don't have their own hands on it. You know, this is one where there's an individual who you know

and you're quite clear, you know, just plan it all out and take the guy out. I mean, this is, it's wild stuff. Yeah. All right, now, you quote all the human rights groups and so forth here talking about the oppression of the Shiite minority and I guess of women and political dissidents of all kinds

and that kinds of thing. You have, with the morality police, just like in Iran and that kind of deal, can you describe the degree of police state there? Well, what's happened here is it's kind of a two-fold thing. And he has some support from young people because what he's been doing is dismantling the religious stuff. You know, that is, you know, women can drive now. You know, they have greater economic opportunities.

You know, they've had concerts, you know, that you can go to movie theaters. And for the most part, the religious police don't show up and arrest you anymore. You know, so there's that sense of a, a. cultural relaxation while he's doubled down on political tyranny. You know, so the women who are out there advocating to be able to drive, he's thrown in prison and had tortured, you know, that they've taken bloggers and put them in jail, not because they criticized him, but because they didn't praise him. You know, so it's not enough to just, you know, not say anything.

You know, if you're not out there kind of sucking up to him all the time, you know, then you'll end up in jail. And what's important here is that, you know, there's a tendency because, because, Shogi was known in Washington, everybody focuses on him. And that's understandable. I mean, I had lunch with him. I was on a panel with him. I mean, he was a good guy.

But the point is the oppression goes so much broader. I mean, other royals have been kidnapped from abroad and broad. And they've been set in prison. You never see them again, like his cousin. So this is a thorough going oppressive place. If you look at Freedom House ratings, you know, they come in worse than China and worse than Russia. I mean, they're down kind of getting close to North Korean territory.

This is a really bad place when it comes to any sense of political freedom, civil liberties, freedom of expression, freedom of religion. I mean, there's not a single synagogue or church or temple there. I mean, this is a very bad place, and it's kind of off the charts. Yet, you know, the president said, well, if it happens again, I'll tell them that I'll complain. Well, yeah, but that really threatens them. That makes them really worried. Yeah. You know, when you read stuff about, you know, they take this Shiite dissident and they cut his head off and then they string up and crucify essentially, or maybe quite literally, crucify his headless corpse to make an example out of him and stuff like that.

It sounds like war propaganda that I would not believe if it was being deployed against any enemy of the United States. You know, if you told me the Ayatollah in Iran did that, I mean, I know he hangs people from their neck a lot. I would say, okay, I'm willing to see your evidence, but I would not just believe it, since I know America hates the I, it told us so much. But in this case, these are our guys. And it's like, yeah. In fact, you have this quote here. I almost can't believe it, but I can at least 89 U.S. persons or their family members were detained, disappeared, or under travel bans at some point in 2021 in Saudi Arabia. And under travel bans means house arrest essentially then, right?

That's right, especially they can't leave the country. I mean, a number of these are spouses. You know, America, say, if you're American woman and you marry a Saudi Arabian man, you go over there, I mean, you become essentially his property. You know, so the point is if you want to divorce, if you want to take the kids, you know, too bad. I mean, no way. And there have been a number who have been, you know, kind of inculcated some American style values in terms of freedom of speech and whatnot. You know, if you say any of that stuff, you end. up in jail, you end up, you know, at the very least under house arrest, you can't ever leave.

And, you know, these are American citizens. And again, this is one where if the president was really concerned about human rights, at the very least, he could say, well, if you want us to defend you, by the way, maybe we should get some of these people out. That what, what to me is extraordinary is this, it's kind of like an iceberg, you know, above the water is Jamal Khashoggi. I mean, extraordinary, incredible public attention, et cetera. and below that is this massive oppression,

which gets very little attention internationally. Yeah, sorry, hang on just one second. Hey, y'all, Scott Horton here for Tennessee Hot Sauce Company. Man, this stuff is so good. They get all different flavors. Garlic habanero, honey habanero, pineapple habanero, Poblano jalapeno, and the Blood Orange Ghost. They're all so good, I swear.

And for a limited time, Tennessee hot sauce company is featuring official Scott Horton hotter than the Sun thermonuclear hot sauce. It's full of Carolina Reapers, Scorpion Peppers, Dr. Pepper, Hydrogen Isotopes, and all kinds of things that'll burn your tongue clean off. Seriously, it's really good. Get yourself a hot sauce subscription. Spend $40 or more and use promo code Scott to get a free bottle of hotter than the sun hot sauce.

That's tnhot sauceco.com. Hey, y'all got to check out these awesome busts of our hero, the great Ron Paul. They're made by the renowned scotch. sculptor Rick Casali, the 13 inches tall hand-painted bronze resin based on Casale's brilliant original. You'll may have seen mine in the background on my bookshelf in some recent interviews. The thing is unbelievable. Check out this incredible piece of art at Rick Casali.com slash Ron Paul, and you'll see what I mean. Use promo code Horton and you'll save 25 bucks, and this show will get a little kickback too. That's Rickasali.com slash Ron Paul.

Casali is C-A-S-A-L-I. Rick C-C-C-A-L-I. Rick C-C-C-C-S-E. salli.com slash Ron Paul. And there's free shipping, too. Well, you know, it's funny. I mean, there were a couple of memes like this, but for the most part, it went unnoticed and unremarked that the difference between the Saudis and ISIS, which they sponsored in Syria was, and in Western Iraq, was that ISIS wore black and the Saudis wear white. But here they are. It's the exact same pose as they cut some guy's head off as they, you know, the only other people, you know, it is, again, it sounds like crazy war propaganda, but it's true when the head of antiquities in Palmyra, Syria, they cut his head off and strung his corpse up on the traffic light. The only other

place in the world you can find that going on is in Riyadh. That's right. And you know, ISIS used Saudi Arabian textbooks in their schools. You know, that was the closest they could find of stuff that was available to teach their students. You know, I mean, the Saudis have cleaned up some of that under, you know, extraordinary international pressure. But for years, I mean, the reason, we have people like the ISIS people is around the world, including in the U.S., you know, the Saudis spread absolute hate material in madrasas all over the world, that, you know, basically, you know, you hate the other, the other is inferior, et cetera, really awful stuff. That's kind of the precursor to terrorism.

Yeah, you know, especially during that time in the Saudi and American intervention in Syria, I remember Patrick Coburn talking about some of these preachers in Saudi who were really being amplified by their government who were preaching, you know, what we would recognize as Nazi-type rhetoric against Shiites especially. And that this is just, this is it. This is the end of the world. We got to kill all the Shiites, you know, this kind of stuff.

And it's being promoted, you know, at full volume by the government of Saudi at that time to radicalize people to send them off for the war for a bomb and dirty war. Yep, yep. So, and now that's the promise of this guy, right? You know, Doug, I remember reading a thing about how the CIA was kind of complaining that they liked Mohammed bin Zayyad, the cousin who was the Crown Prince, who MBS overthrew. And they said, we like this guy. He worked with us against Al Qaeda, which I thought must have been a mistake, maybe an editor's mistake. They must have meant to help us support Al Qaeda all over the Middle East as we do.

But whatever it was, now they're kind of stuck with this guy. And, of course, they got us fighting on al-Qaeda's side in Yemen, but less so in Syria now, fighting just more on the side of the Kurdish leftists there, I think. Well, no, it's still our friends of Turks are protecting al-Qaeda in the Idlib province. I don't know how much Saudi has to do with that anymore, but I guess I wonder what you think about. Compared to his predecessor, what is MBS's, you know, overall strategy or tactics in using these al-Qaeda suicide bomber types? as Obama did, and as they all did in Syria and really in Libya before that in the Obama years, going forward here. Do you think there's much more danger of that?

Well, it looks to me like MBS is, to some degree, tired of foreign adventures. I mean, I don't see much evidence he's doing much in Syria these days. It seems like they've kind of given that one up. I mean, they're actually having discussions with the Iranians. the, you know, there's been a lot of discussions between actually Syrian government and UAE, which the U.S. has tried to get in the way of. And the Saudis, so it looks to me like, you, he's not, I mean, he clearly wants out of Yemen, but doesn't want to kind of allow the Houthis to have complete control, but he seems to have realized this has been an utter catastrophe. So my

sense is that he is looking a bit more domestic. He's trying to figure up an economy that's not based on oil. He's got some of these massive development plans, which, you know, strike me, they could go very, very bad. But nevertheless, seems to have his focus. You know, he's playing a little bit more with the Chinese, trying to get more Chinese money in. So I, it looks to me like he's gone through this period where he just recognizes all those military adventures really are not helpful. And it's kind of walking away from those. I mean, he'll certainly use any, any group that he can for his own purposes, but it looks to me like he has really stepped away from a lot of that stuff and is focusing a bit more. Part of it, I think, is trying to ensure his control. I mean,

his dad is not in good shape. I mean, the presumption is, you know, the king is, you know, is not going to be around, you know, for an awful lot more. So he wants to take over, not have problems at home. Very young population, jobs matter, trying to satisfy that population matters. So I think he's got a somewhat different agenda to the future than the folks in the past. Yeah. And now, as far as climbing down on Yemen, I wonder if there was, do you know if there's any talk really between him and Biden on this trip about what are they going to do in Yemen here? They have a ceasefire, which as Hassan Al-Tayeb is saying, looks like it might fall apart right now if we don't get the Congress to get the president to get MBS to finally climb down from this thing. obviously they can't win the war at the same time they have a loss it's not like the huthies are taken reaad so how about time out and call it quits for real can we do it well that would make a lot

of sense but this administration doesn't seem to get that i mean the problem here is this administration for reasons that are almost unfathomable has essentially taken the trump position towards iran and part of the trump position towards iran is the huthies are tools of Iran. The Saudis are fighting the Iranians by being in Yemen. Therefore, we can't simply demand that the Saudis leave Yemen because that would turn it all over to Iran. I mean, all of this, of course, is crap that the reason the Iranians are active is because the Saudis were dumb enough to start a war with the Houthis, which gave the Houthis an al-a-sent opportunity to bleed Saudi Arabia dry. But, I mean, I hear that all the time from some of the right-wing think tanks.

Oh, the Houthis, it's all Iran. I mean, that's the way they do everything. Oh, we have to stay in Iraq because of Iran. I mean, they act as if Iran is the superpower and if, you know, we leave, you know, one area, you're kind of open. They'll take it over and the world will end. I think that's the problem here. The Biden administration seems to treat Yemen as simply another front in dealing with Iran. And, of course, they're fully prepared to let the JCPOA go.

They're making the same statements that we're prepared to use military force. They're promising to, you know, make sure there will never be a nuclear weapon. They're over there, you know, in Israel kind of, you know, cuddling up and saying, we all agree on this in terms of nuclear weapons. I mean, it's very sad where he could have come in and returned the U.S., had minimal political problems, had done it, gotten it over, and moved on. And instead, you know, we could end up in a war with Iran in the next year or two. Yeah, it's just incredible.

And, you know, it's got to be mentioned, too. As I know, you know, most of this audience already knows, but maybe some, some people don't. It ain't just the USA. It's this guy, Joe Biden, who was the third most important man in the United States of America in terms of getting us into a rock war two. You know, I mean, you could say Paul Wolfowitz maybe was tied for third place, but it was George Bush, Dick Cheney and Joe Biden, the leader of the Foreign Relations Committee in the U.S. Senate, when the U.S. Senate was controlled by the opposition party, the upper house in the hands of the opposition party, And the leader of the Foreign Relations Committee was Cheney's whip, Bush and Cheney's whip against the rest of the Democrats to make sure they voted for the war when he should have stopped it if he tried.

And then what did that mean? It means he's the guy who handed Baghdad over to Iran's best friends. And then he was vice president under Obama when Obama made, you know, tried to get rid of Assad, but ended up making the government in Syria more dependent on Iran than ever before. And then, as you just said, same for the Houthis two by even having this war. They've only empowered Iran in the Arabian Peninsula more than they ever were before and gave them a great way to help weaken Saudi Arabia by turning them to their southwest instead of their northeast where Persian lies this whole time. And so whose fault is it all? It's all Joe Biden's fault the whole time. The only time he wasn't in charge his policy was when Trump was in power, but the policy never changed.

the whole time for that four years. So same difference. So he's in no position to have any of these policies based on the danger of Iranian power and influence in the region when it's literally his individual fault, you know? Yep, that's exactly right. God dang, I can't believe Joe Biden's the president. Are you saying about Trump?

I can't believe Donald Trump is the president. Now I'm like, I can't believe Joe Biden's the president. The best and brightest America chooses for its leader. It's quite extraordinary. It's just so embarrassing. I travel around the world, and I can't explain it to anybody. Right. Yeah, no, what are you supposed to say?

Well, we don't, it's not up to us. Don't worry, Kamala Harris is vice president. And then, boy, Nancy Pelosi's really on the ball. She's house speed. You know, you're just like, you want to run screaming from the room. Yeah, seriously. Well, their best ideas they want Gavin Newsom to run for president. I guess he's going to run on a million people fled California while he was the governor of it

for their dear lives. That's right. You're going to do that for the rest of us. I can't wait. He's got a nice hair, though. He does. All right, Doug Bondo, you're awesome. Thank you so much for all your great articles and your time on the show again.

Absolutely. You have a good one. You too. The Scott Horton Show, an anti-war radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian.org, and Libertarian. Institute.org