It’s Time to Put the Brakes on Saudi Arabia’s War in Yemen

It’s Time to Put the Brakes on Saudi Arabia’s War in Yemen

As the Trump White House comes to grips with the Saudi government’s role in the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi, it confronts a major dilemma that has bedeviled previous American administrations: How do we punish a country with which the United States is locked in a relationship of profound mutual dependence?

The kingdom needs American military protection, despite having the world’s third-largest military budget and lots of shiny Western weaponry. And the United States, despite the North American shale revolution, still relies on Saudi oil [in the sense that the world oil market cannot function without it]. The Saudis are also a vital partner for counterterrorism. For these reasons, American punishment for the murder of Khashoggi, a Post contributing columnist, is likely to consist of the usual wrist-slapping: no high-level summits for a while, a bit less pomp in any official meetings for some time after that and maybe a visa ban or two for complicit individuals. Congress, for its part, may issue a resolution expressing its collective outrage.

That would be a woefully inadequate response. The brazenness of the killing in Istanbul is stunning. Moreover, it targeted an American resident who was a powerful advocate of free speech and political accountability. The even bigger problem, however, is that this murder fits a pattern of outrageous and harmful Saudi behavior. The kingdom’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is a brash young man who has by now made many mistakes because of arrogance and inexperience — from his brutal and extralegal “anti-corruption drive” to his abduction of the Lebanese prime minister to his unnecessary public standoff with Qatar. Against this background, the Khashoggi murder is less an exceptional act of recklessness than an emblem of the new normal for the kingdom.

One tempting option would be to stop US arms sales — a measure that could impose pain on Riyadh without disrupting America’s de facto security guarantee, or the world’s unquenchable thirst for Saudi hydrocarbons. Yet President Trump resists this step, arguing that American jobs are on the line.

But there’s a natural compromise. We should use this crisis as a chance to do what we should have been doing all along — namely, to force the Saudis [and, ideally, their key ally, the United Arab Emirates] to rethink their disastrous war in neighboring Yemen.

Three years into the Saudi intervention, there is no longer any reasonable argument for believing that what the Saudis are doing will work. Meanwhile, the intelligence support, logistics assistance and specific types of weaponry that we provide Saudi Arabia have made us complicit in all the airstrikes gone wrong and the ensuing carnage among civilians.

Complete victory is not attainable for Saudi Arabia and its mostly southern and Sunni allies. Nor is it necessary. American, and Saudi, and broader regional interests can be adequately protected by continuing targeted strikes against al-Qaeda elements in Yemen…

To ensure that Riyadh takes such a more realistic approach in Yemen, Washington should make its military assistance for the war conditional. The United States has considerable influence. Saudi Arabia depends, in part, on the United States and US contractors for intelligence and logistics. Riyadh also values America’s good opinion [and, if anything, values Trump’s support more than it did Obama’s], so it is sensitive to US criticism.

The warring parties could start by declaring a pause in the bombing of Ansarullah revolutionaries’ targets and the opening of negotiations, followed by a large-scale infusion of humanitarian aid. The Americans would make it clear to Saudi Arabia that the pace of airstrikes will have to decline [and will reinforce this policy by delivering munitions “just in time” rather than in large batches]. American planners should be co-located with Saudis, giving each side veto power over the use of any lethal ordinance.

None of this will solve all the problems between the United States and the kingdom. At least, though, we will no longer be compelled to follow the military lead of a young Saudi prince who has now proven to the world on multiple occasions that his judgment cannot be trusted.

Source: The Washington Post, Edited by website team

US Senator: We Must Stop Helping Saudi Arabia in Yemen

October 25, 2018

The likely assassination of the Saudi critic and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi underscores how urgent it has become for the United States to redefine our relationship with Saudi Arabia, and to show that the Saudis do not have a blank check to continue violating human rights, the US senator Bernie Sanders wrote in an article published by the New York Times.

“One place we can start is by ending United States support for the war in Yemen. Not only has this war created a humanitarian disaster in one of the world’s poorest countries, but also American involvement in this war has not been authorized by Congress and is therefore unconstitutional.”

Sanders added that the United States is deeply engaged in this war. We are providing bombs the Saudi-led coalition is using, we are refueling their planes before they drop those bombs, and we are assisting with intelligence.

“In far too many cases, the bomb’s targets have been civilian ones. In one of the more horrible recent instances, an American-made bomb obliterated a school bus full of young boys, killing dozens and wounding many more. A CNN report found evidence that American weapons have been used in a string of such deadly attacks on civilians since the war began.”

Sanders also criticized the US officials who claim that Saudi and UAE try to avoid targeting the civilians in Yemen, adding that this war has helped ISIL and Al-Qaeda terrorists deepen their inroads across much of the country.

Yemen has been since March 2015 under brutal aggression by Saudi-led coalition, in a bid to restore control to fugitive president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who is Riyadh’s ally.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and injured in the strikes launched by the coalition, with the vast majority of them are civilians.

The coalition, which includes in addition to Saudi Arabia and UAE: Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan and Kuwait, has been also imposing a harsh blockade against Yemenis.

Source: The New York Time and Al-Manar English Website

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