To Stabilize Yemen, the United States Must Stop Selling Arms to Saudi Arabia
Two bills now before Congress would block a proposed $650 million arms sale to Saudi Arabia. That won’t end the war in Yemen, but it’s a necessary start. Progressive lawmakers should join Ilhan Omar and Bernie Sanders in supporting the bills.
Yemeni children play in the rubble of a building destroyed by an air raid in 2019. (Peter Biro / European Union)
Earlier this month, US representative Ilhan Omar introduced a resolution that would bar the sale of $650 million of arms to Saudi Arabia. Days later, Senator Rand Paul, joined by senators Mike Lee and Bernie Sanders, followed suit. “As the Saudi government continues to wage its devastating war in Yemen and repress its own people, we should not be rewarding them with more arms sales,” said Sanders of the bipartisan bill.
Saudi Arabia’s war against the Houthi faction in Yemen has begun to grind to a halt, with the kingdom hunting for a way out. Nevertheless, the situation on the ground, one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, has only worsened. The proposed arms sales are consistent with the Joe Biden administration’s policy of publicly opposing Saudi actions while continuing to implicitly support the Saudi military. The two resolutions before Congress are a welcome shift and should be ardently supported by progressive lawmakers and indeed anyone on the Left.
The World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis
In 2015, responding to the takeover of Yemen’s capital Sana’a by the rebel Houthi group, Saudi Arabia’s fresh and untested crown prince Mohammed bin Salman launched what would become his centerpiece policy, Operation Decisive Storm, which rapidly transformed the Yemeni Civil War into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
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