Defying president Donald Trump’s insistent defence of Saudi Arabia, the US Senate, on Thursday, voted to end military involvement and aid for the war in Yemen, which has pushed the country to the brink of starvation.
Just weeks after the United Nations proclaimed it as the worst humanitarian emergency of 2019, senators who were already keen on severing connections with the kingdom over Jamal Khashoggi’s killing, tabled the issue of sending aid for Saudi Arabia to prolong the proxy war.
Resolution 1: Stop lending support for proxy war
Thursday’s 56-to-41 vote has been the strongest show of bipartisan defiance, according to the New York Times, which also calls this a rare move by the Senate to limit the president’s war powers. It further sends a message against those party to this five-year proxy war, that has already killed thousands of civilians and has brought famine on Yemeni soil.
In 2015, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (then the defence minister) led his country into the war to defend Yemen’s internationally recognised government, which had been ousted from its capital, Sanaa, by the Houthi rebels. Sunni Muslim monarchy Saudi Arabia, and its ally UAE, intervened in 2015, upon realising that Iran (Shiite) was supporting the rebels with weapons and missiles.
The quest between the two sects for power and influence across the Middle East soon turned Yemen into a battlefield. Backed by the US and other western allies, relentless airstrikes were launched on Houthi forces which drastically escalated the conflict.
Millions of civilians were caught in the crossfire. Hospitals and sewage facilities have been indiscriminately bombed, resulting in epidemics like cholera. But death by starvation among children, in particular, has reached unthinkable proportions, as Yemens central port, Al-Hudaydah, remains cut off from external supply and faces continuous attacks from Saudi-UAE-led forces.
Resolution 2: Punish MBS for Khashoggi killing
Another resolution passed unanimously the same day, holding MBS personally responsible for the death of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. This comes after the CIA held meetings with senators, briefing them about the findings of their investigation into the events of October 2. That was the day US-based journalist and Washington Post columnist Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was ambushed, murdered and dismembered by a Saudi hit squad. The operation is suspected to have been under the direct supervision of MBS, although he has denied being in the know-how, and Trump has chosen to believe that version of events.
What brings us here
Despite international pressure on Saudi Arabia and its allies, Trump not only refuses to condemn the kingdom for killing the dissident journalist and continuing with its war crimes and human rights abuses, but he also dismissed the reports put forward by US intelligence agencies, maintaining a steadfast support for MBS. The rising number of casualties in Yemen caused by US-made weapons has not rested easily with majority members of the Senate, belonging to both factions, which pushed them to vote against a strategically important ally to the US on Friday.
Those who voted yes
The resolution, written by Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah and Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, invoked the War Powers Act of 1973 which was introduced after the Vietnam War to empower the Congress in deciding when the US would go to war.
Seven Republican senators joined Democrats to pass the resolution including Lee, Susan Collins of Maine, Steve Daines of Montana, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Todd Young of Indiana. The Democrats who registered an unprecedented win in the midterm elections last month are poised to take control of the House starting next week, although the Yemen measure is unlikely to be taken up before the new year. It does, however, set the stage for the final showdown between the President and the Congress.
What Trump said about ending support
Trump has himself admitted that punishing Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi’s death would risk billions of dollars worth of American arm sales to the kingdom. The role that the Istanbul incident played in the Yemeni crisis is further underscored by what Senator Lee said after voting to end support, 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. And weve done so, following the lead of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Just hours before the final vote, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had briefed the lawmakers behind closed doors, imploring them to let the exchange of military advice, logistical support and intelligence with Saudi Arabia continue as it has for years.
Prarthana Mitra is a staff writer at Qrius