Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, accompanied by 1000 aides filling 18 airplanes, is visiting America in search of economic investments and defense guarantees. President Donald Trump continues to emphasize the so-called Abraham Accords, by which Washington rewards Islamic governments for recognizing Israel.

He wants MbS, as the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is known, to be next. Observed Trump: “I hope to see Saudi Arabia go in, and I hope to see others go in. I think when Saudi Arabia goes in, everybody goes in.” On Tuesday evening the president will host a lavish formal dinner for the visiting potentate.

Trump touts his Abrahamic campaign as a great achievement. However, none of the nations involved — including Sudan and Kazakhstan, which matter not at all in Mideast affairs — was at war with Israel, so there was no peace to make. Moreover, countries like Morocco and United Arab Emirates, as well as the KSA, long engaged in backdoor security cooperation with Jerusalem. Riyadh’s recognition would boost Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, threatened by corruption charges, more than Israel, let alone America.

Unfortunately, however, Americans would be stuck with the bill. MbS has been demanding a security commitment, especially after the president promised to defend Qatar. Trump reportedly plans to make a more limited pledge, though still committing the U.S. to protect the Saudi royal family. American military personnel would be expected to fight and die for the KSA’s princely class and the U.S. homeland would become a potential target of the Kingdom’s enemies.

However, the royals are not easily satisfied. Saudi military analyst Hesham Alghannam explained: “Riyadh is not seeking symbolic protection. It wants a credible and clear defense arrangement. Not MOUs with no action plan. Something more than the partial offers the kingdom is getting now.” That certainly means conventional support. And perhaps much more.

In the past MbS has demanded access to American nuclear technology as well as the right to enrich uranium, providing a possible source of weapons-grade material. The crown prince has mooted the possibility of building a Saudi atomic bomb. Princeton’s Bernard Haykel opined: “I suspect for now that they will give up on enrichment and processing, but they will want a nuclear umbrella protection from the U.S.” Gregory Gause, a visiting scholar at the Middle East Institute noted that “Historically, we have had nuclear weapons stationed all over the place. It doesn’t require Congress to approve the stationing of nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia.” Perhaps “Trump could just say we will commit to nuclear-armed submarines patrolling the Indian Ocean.

Riyadh always puts the Saudi royal family first. For years that meant promoting radical Wahhabism around the world in return for Islamist clerics preaching obedience to the royal regime. Indeed, the Islamic State used Saudi textbooks in its short-lived caliphate in occupied Syrian and Iraqi territory. Only under sustained Washington pressure did the KSA stop promoting Salafism worldwide, including in the U.S., and eliminate hate-mongering educational materials.

However, the regime still enforces a domestic Islamic religious monopoly, and only barely tolerates its Shia population, which is tightly controlled but too large to forcibly eradicate. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom: “Challenges to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) included the constitutional prohibition on non-Muslim worship, egregious punishments for religious dissidents, criminalization of blasphemy, and a religiously based male guardianship system.” Although MbS occasionally puts on a show for credulous visiting evangelicals, his promised religious reforms never occur.

The crown prince has liberalized Saudi social life, as a matter of demographic survival since almost two-thirds of the population is under 30. However, he has tightened what were already near-totalitarian political controls. Indeed, while relaxing restrictions on women, he imprisoned several activists for protesting against the previous rules.

Today Freedom House ranks Riyadh barely above North Korea, Eritrea, and the worst of the Central Asian tyrannies. The Kingdom is tied with Beijing and lower than Iran and Russia. MbS’s most ostentatious crime was the 2018 murder and dismemberment of critic and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi. The killer prince even punishes dual citizens residing in America for criticizing his rule. T

he State Department details the many crimes of MbS and his government: “Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings; disappearances; torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; arbitrary arrest and detention; transnational repression against individuals in another country; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists and censorship; restrictions of religious freedom; and prohibiting independent trade unions or significant or systemic restrictions on workers’ freedom of association. The government did not take credible steps or action to identify and punish officials who committed human rights abuses in a verifiable way.”

MbS tied his interest in acquiring a nuclear weapon to the possibility of Iran acquiring one, but his foreign policy has been more belligerent and destabilizing than that of Tehran, despite the latter’s more menacing reputation. Indeed, he has sought to make Riyadh a regional hegemon alongside Israel. He launched an aggressive, and failed, war against Yemen, which left a radicalized Ansar Allah movement in charge and threatening international maritime commerce. He kidnapped Lebanon’s prime minister during the latter’s visit to the Kingdom, before giving in to international pressure by releasing his captive (who then reversed his forced “resignation”). Unabashed, MbS later joked about the episode.

He led a surprise regime change campaign against Qatar, which hosts a major American air force base, even threatening military intervention; subsequently the Biden administration designated Doha as a Major Non-NATO Ally and, as noted earlier, Trump recently promised to defend the emirate. MbS underwrote jihadist radicals in Syria, creating an opening for al-Qaeda and ISIS. In the name of stability he also deployed the KSA military to back Bahrain’s dictatorial Sunni regime against democracy activists representing the Shia majority and fomented Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s coup against Egypt’s first democratically elected government, leading to mass repression and imprisonment. Alas, by suppressing rather than addressing popular unrest, both countries have created potential crises in the future. Any security commitment offered by Washington to Riyadh would only encourage the killer prince to be more reckless.

Of course, the U.S. should seek to maintain a civil relationship with the Kingdom, which is an important Middle Eastern power. However, the relationship should be transactional, based on shared interests, not U.S. submissiveness. Saudi Arabia will sell oil to America and the West even if Washington stops exempting MbS from the norms of civilized society. Moreover, America’s energy revolution, along with the burgeoning international market, has reduced Riyadh’s ability to manipulate oil supplies.

With the crown prince hosting a U.S.-Saudi investment summit on Wednesday, other economic deals also should be closely scrutinized since he uses royal funds for political ends, including “to whitewash the country’s abysmal human rights record,” reported Human Rights Watch. Moreover, Riyadh’s Public Investment Fund “has facilitated and benefited directly from serious human rights abuses linked to [MbS]. This includes the crown prince’s 2017 ‘anti-corruption’ crackdown that consisted of arbitrary detentions, abusive treatment of detainees, and the extortion of property from Saudi Arabia’s elite, as well as the 2018 murder of Saudi critic and journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” Saudi money also has led to serious appearances of conflicts of interest for the Trump administration.

More than any other region, the Mideast deserves a dose of America First. The president has spoken of his determination “to run the world.” Better to leave most countries to handle their own affairs, especially in the Middle East. Israel dominates. States militarily aligned with Washington, most notably Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait, fill the Persian Gulf. These governments are more than capable of cooperating to promote security and stability, without an American promise to go to war, especially one backed by nuclear weapons. More bluntly, U.S. military personnel should not be expected to fight and die for Saudi princes. President Trump has an opportunity to finally put the American people first in American foreign policy.

After their dinner, the president should send MbS and his oversized travel party on their way. It’s time for the royals to stop treating the U.S. armed forces as a modern Janissary Corps tasked with their protection. Let the crown prince convince the Saudi people that his rule and the monarchy are worth defending.

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Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author ofForeign Follies: America’s New Global Empire.

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