Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Senate Rebukes Trump on Yemen, Khashoggi
The Republican-dominated US Senate has been the lap dog of the Trump administration since January 20, 2017. Yesterday, it voted twice against the administration, in both cases with Saudi Arabia as the subject. First, the Senate opted to cut off US aid for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen against Iranian-backed rebels. The vote was 56-41 invoking the War Powers Act of 1973. Second, the Senate voted unanimously to condemn the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The House will not take these measures up, but a new House is to be sworn in on January 3. A reassessment of the Saudi-US relationship is in order.
The Saudi war in Yemen is a proxy war with Iran. The Saudis lead the Sunni strain of Islam while the Iranians take the Shi'ite view. The Saudis believed a quick bombing campaign would crush the rebellion, and three years later, it is still there.
Much like Christendom spent the Thirty Years' War killing each other over whether the Psalms should be sung in Latin or the vernacular, Islam is waging a war among the faithful over the Prophet's succession. Allah may be merciful, but his followers seem to lack compassion in this regard.
Yemen is suffering what may well be the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world. As the New York Times noted, "The war has turned much of Yemen into a wasteland and has killed at least 10,000 civilians, mostly in errant airstrikes. The real number is probably much higher, but verifying casualties in Yemen's remote areas is extremely difficult. Some 14 million people are facing starvation, in what the United Nations has said could soon become the worst famine seen in the world in 100 years. Disease is rampant, including the world's worst modern outbreak of cholera." America is not primarily responsible for this; the Saudis and Iranians are. Yet, American weaponry is in use. The vote is meant to end that.
Meanwhile, the Senate condemned the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the incident that finally got lawmakers' attention. "What the Khashoggi event did, I think, was to focus on the fact that we have been led into this civil war in Yemen, half a world away, into a conflict in which few Americans that I know can articulate what American national security interest is at stake," said Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah. "And we've done so, following the lead of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia."
It is unfortunate that it took such an egregious application of realpolitik to get them to focus on the mess. Now that they have, though, it is wise to reassess the entire relationship with Saudi Arabia. Once upon a time, America had to put up with Saudi bad behavior because the US was desperate for imported oil. Thanks to fracking and other technologies, the US is a net exporter of oil. The Saudis matter a great deal less. Consider that they fund the kind of religious schools that gave rise to Al Qaeda and ISIS, and it becomes clear that the theocracy there is inimical to American ideals, values and interests. Simply put, Saudi Arabia is not a friend nor an ally of the United States.
The neo-con perspective would demand a change of regime there to bring Saudi Arabia into the US camp, and the experience in Iraq should have dismissed this option as fanciful. One has little interest in who governs the kingdom nor how. It would be nice if there were a democratic, secular republic there (as it would be everywhere), but that should be a matter for the Saudis themselves.
Where the US does have an interest is in the behavior of the Saudi regime in the global system. Waging a war that is killing thousands of civilians and starving the survivors is hardly good behavior. Murdering journalists who write critical articles is hardly good behavior. And when a nation behaves badly, repercussions are in order.
So long as Donald Trump is President of the United States, the Saudi government is going to be able to do as it likes. That does not mean Congress should acquiesce. The Senate has made the first move toward a Saudi policy that makes sense.
© Copyright 2018 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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