Trump's Saudi speech: A rightwing Obama-style apology tour?

During his visit to Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump gave a speech today (Tuesday) in which he praised the Gulf States for their achievements - and also engaged in what some experts speaking to Jewish Insider called an "apology tour," attacking American actions in the Middle East in a similar vein to what President Obama did in 2009.

The key portion in question is as follows:

"And it's crucial for the wider world to note: this great transformation has not come from Western interventionists or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs.

"No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation builders, neocons, or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop, cabal, Baghdad, so many other cities.

"Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives, developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions and charting your own destinies in your own way."

Trump also fiercely attacked the weakness of the Biden administration, which he claimed created chaos in the region.

But in and of itself, it's hard to call the speech as a whole an apology. The speech celebrates America, especially on President Trump's watch, dedicating most of its beginning to discuss how well the country is doing economically and in terms of projecting strength abroad.

Far from being isolationist, Trump celebrates the country's long-standing ties to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, a long-standing GOP priority since the days when oil companies helped greatly influence the party's foreign policy. He also celebrated the Abraham Accords and combined efforts to eliminate or contain ISIS and Iran.

Criticizing American policies of his predecessors is indeed an act of "airing dirty laundry" that was generally not done, and should not be done, but the speech is not a plea for forgiveness, but rather a statement that the United States erred and is now back, on the basis of equal relations between states, rather than as a liberal empire reducing the independence of other countries.

Whether or not this policy is better than what the United States did before remains to be seen.