Comment: The gift 747 was only one problem in Mideast trip

By John M. Crisp / Tribune News Service

An anecdote: At some point in the early 1980s, I was talking with a friend about the shah of Iran, that is, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled Iran from 1941 until he was deposed by the Iranian revolution of 1979 and replaced by the current theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Shah’s reign was characterized by corruption and despotic oppression largely carried out by SAVAK, the Shah’s loyal secret police, which specialized in terror, imprisonment and torture. Still, the U.S. liked the friendly Shah because Iran was overflowing with oil.

My friend summed up the Shah this way, paraphrasing: All you really need to know about the Shah of Iran is that his private jet had gold-plated toilets.

Which is another way of saying that the Qataris have Donald Trump’s number. I don’t know if the $400 million 747 on offer to the president actually has gold-plated toilets, but it’s billed as the epitome of lavish extravagance in airline luxury, which the Qataris know is irresistible to a man of Trump’s tastes.

Now, I’m not saying that rich people shouldn’t have nice things. Still, I hope that Congress will step in and decline this gift. What could be more unconstitutional — except the rejection of birthright citizenship, maybe —than to defy the intent of the Founders in the Constitution’s emoluments clause, the spirit and letter of which clearly prohibit the gift of a $400 million airplane to the president?

Trump’s rationales for accepting the gift are far-fetched, disingenuous or silly. Try to imagine the Founders holding that the president can’t receive such a gift without the consent of Congress but somehow the secretary of defense can. Implausible.

And Sam Snead? Trump cites Snead as saying that if an opponent concedes a putt to you, “you pick up your ball, say ‘Thank you very much’ and walk to the next hole.” It’s debatable that Snead actually said this, but if he did, Trump doesn’t mention that if you are conceded a putt, the expectation is that you will concede similar putts to your opponent.

In short, nearly all gifts come with strings attached; Trump’s pretense of imagining otherwise makes him look gullible. And, really, should the leader of the free world be obliged to a nation like Qatar for his transportation?

But the Qatari offer is part of a bigger problem. Trump’s four-day dealmaking visit to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia enhanced the status and legitimacy of these Gulf monarchies.

During a 40-minute speech to assembled royals and ministers in a lavish ballroom in Saudi Arabia, Trump essentially rejected several decades of American policy in the Middle East. He assured his listeners that the U.S. will no longer be “giving you lectures on how to live.” He urged the Arabs to determine “your own destinies in your own way.”

Fine. It’s probably not our business to tell other people how to govern themselves. But it’s important to note that these countries are autocratic monarchies that, like the shah of Iran, remain in power by means of repression of dissent with censorship, torture and imprisonment. They discriminate against women and criminalize LGBTQ citizens. Their punishments include flogging, stoning, hanging and beheading.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a patent murderer and party to the dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi; Trump calls the crown price “an incredible man” and “a great guy.”

Of course, we have a long history of tolerating brutal authoritarians for the sake of oil and petrodollars. Still, it’s a cringe-making moment for Americans who believe in democracy to hear Trump assert before the assembled monarchists in Saudi Arabia that the 2020 election was rigged.

The Arabs are sophisticated people; they know that this is Trump’s Big Lie. It’s also just what they want to hear: American democracy is a corrupt failure, no better than their own authoritarian regimes. So much for American exceptionalism.

We’ve probably always imagined that our engagement with authoritarians would tend to nudge them toward our more enlightened way of governance. But it works the other way, too; avaricious dealmaking with authoritarians has a tendency to blur the differences between us, or to destroy them altogether.