President Trump’s Mideast trip produced a bevy of encouraging promises. And his speech was a rousing success, laying out what was at stake in fighting terror, both from Iran and jihadis like ISIS and al Qaeda. But now comes the hard part: getting Arab nations to live up to those promises. Especially Qatar.

Trump’s formula is simple: Good versus evil. Are you with or against us?

It matters little that none of the Arab nations are true democracies. His speech was intended to gather a posse of willing partners to fight Mideast extremists and anti-US firebrands. (The fact that being a democracy came second was made clear when, on Tuesday, Acting Assistant Secretary of State Stuart Jones was stumped for half a minute when asked at a press briefing to distinguish between “democracy” in Iran and Saudi Arabia.)

As National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn wrote in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday, “A strong stand against terrorism is consistent with values common across all the world’s great religions.”

And a strong coalition is emerging to make that stand, they insist. “Leader after leader” has “committed to confronting the terrorism and extremism that plague all civilized societies.”
Well, maybe.

Start with the Saudis. Trump and Riyadh signed a deal worth $110 billion to strengthen the Saudis’ defensive capabilities (while creating American jobs), and $270 billion in other investments. The Saudis, in return, established the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center, designed to stem jihadi funding.

That’s a big deal in a country where wealthy princes have for decades financed various terror extremists around the world — and where some still do.

The Saudi king, and especially his son, Muhammad bin Salman — who’s the country’s real mover and shaker — seem to understand that jihadists really threaten their hold on power.

But can the 31-year-old Muhammad fend off some powerful old guard traditionalists who still want to play ball with the Islamists? That remains to be seen.

Next is Egypt. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is fighting ISIS in the Sinai and in neighboring Libya. That’s good; he seems in for the fight. Getting Sisi to trust us, after President Obama allowed him to drift into Russia’s arms, will take some doing, but he’ll remain an ally.

Jordan, too, has been a reasonably good ally — and a reliable fighter against terrorists. At the same time, all these Sunni-run nations are understandably staunch foes of Iran, which they see as an existential threat.

But then there’s Qatar. Dubbed in some circles as “the little country that could,” its tendency to play all sides against the middle has long been overlooked here — but not by its neighbors, who are often furious with it.

Qatar is an American ally. It hosts Al Udeid, the largest US Air Force base in the Mideast. It publicly articulates pro-US statements, and even quietly maintains business ties with Israelis.
But Qatar is also a foe. It lets Hamas leaders reside in Doha. It’s a friend to Sisi’s enemy, the Muslim Brotherhood, and it finances al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda.

On top of that, it’s suspected of sucking up to Iran. The latest example: A report from Doha’s news agency that quoted Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Qatari emir, making statements seen as friendly to the Tehran mullahs.

Qatar said the quotes were “fake news” created by hackers of its news agency. Yet a well-connected Arab diplomat tells me the quotes were an almost-verbatim repeat of private conversations he’s had with Thani.

It’s also notable that the emir talked by phone with the newly re-elected Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, this week.

Chummy relations with Iran don’t fly well among members of Trump’s Riyadh-based coalition. Sunni Arab aversion to Obama’s Iran dealings was a top reason leaders drifted away from America, and why they’ll return to our side with a Trump presidency that’s ready to stand up to the mullahs.

Owning Al Jazeera, the world’s largest Arab-language megaphone, the Thani clan has long been applauded by Westerners, who cite the cable channel’s guts in criticizing Arab potentates (except for the Qatari emirs.)

But Al Jazeera is also home to Yusuf al-Qardawi, a firebrand Islamist preacher sermonizing daily on the virtues of jihad and spewing hate of the West. It often sides with Iran as well.
So the Saudis and their allies are right to be mad at Qatar.

Marshaling Arab support has always been difficult. Now, opposition to Iran’s expansionism has become an organizing theme that can unify the region against all extremists. Trump needs to issue a simple command for Qatar and anyone else trying to have it both ways: Choose.