Khashoggi row: It's time Trump focused on US ideals when dealing with Saudi

Trump's transactional foreign policy is primarily concerned with money and American jobs

President Donald Trump’s reaction to the disappearance and death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul reveals important details about the declining influence of US in the Middle East.

As a scholar who follows the links between international and domestic politics in the Middle East, it is not hard to see that what President Trump has said so far about the Khashoggi affair will accelerate the diminishing power of the US in the Middle East.

New dynamic for an old alliance
 

American influence in the Middle East – especially over Saudi Arabia – was already waning before Trump’s election.

After the Bush administration’s