President Donald Trump wants to outsource U.S. policy to Riyadh. After the recent attack on Saudi Arabia's oil fields, he tweeted that his administration was "locked and loaded," but was "waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!" He later ordered American forces to Saudi Arabia to garrison the Middle East's most brutally repressive and dangerously aggressive state.

Since he himself ventured to Riyadh in 2017—his first foreign trip—Trump has consistently sacrificed America's national interests in catering to the preferences of the Saudi royal family. His administration backed the regime's brutal attack on Yemen, ignored Riyadh's continuing support for Islamic radicalism, and said little about their mounting human rights violations. Now he is acting as if American armed forces constitute the royals' personal bodyguards, at the crown prince's beck and call.