This article originally appeared at The Intercept:
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon made a rare public appearance Monday at the Hudson Institute, a neoconservative Washington think tank. Bannon, who recently returned to his position as chair of the far-right website Breitbart, defended President Donald Trump’s Middle East policies, arguing the administration’s engagement with the Muslim world has been successful.
“What’s been accomplished in a very short period of time to me is amazing,” said Bannon.
Bannon was especially proud of Trump’s summit in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh last May, where the president joined Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi King Salman in placing their hands on a white glowing orb to commemorate the opening of a new counterterror center. Bannon said the meeting sparked “tectonic plate shifts” throughout the Middle East. “I don’t think he’s got the credit for the summit,” Bannon said of Trump. “It was important for the Muslim world. It was important for the Arab world. It was important to show that the United States is fully engaged.”
Bannon pointed out that in the weeks after the summit, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates escalated their feud with Qatar. The conference served as a staging ground for a major offensive in the public relations campaign against Qatar, part of a long-simmering feud between the tiny Gulf Sheikdom and other U.S. allies on the Arabian Peninsula. And Bannon, who has financial ties to the UAE, was wading in.
“The single most important thing that’s happening in the world is the situation in Qatar,” Bannon said. “Qatar finally had to be called to account for the continual funding for the Muslim Brotherhood, continual funding for Hamas.”
Read the full story at The Intercept.