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Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was in Washington, D.C. yesterday for a high-profile White House visit. President Donald Trump rolled out the red carpet for "MBS," as he is commonly known, much as MBS himself did for Trump when the commander-in-chief visited Riyadh in May. By all accounts, the visit was a warm one—and a highly successful one, at least from Saudi Arabia's perspective. The more relevant question, however, is this: Was this also a successful visit, from our American perspective?

The answer is slightly more complicated.

On the one hand, Saudi Arabia is indeed an important and valuable ally of the United States. As I explained in a Newsweek column three years ago, the realist/"America First" cas

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