A group of 63 senators voted to allow a debate over ending U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war against Iranian proxies in Yemen, despite calls from the administration not to harm the U.S.-Saudi alliance.
WASHINGTON – The vote which took place on Wednesday in the U.S. Senate over America’s involvement in the ongoing war in Yemen represented a stinging foreign policy failure for the Trump administration.
A group of 63 senators – including every Democrat in the Senate and 14 Republicans – voted to allow a debate over ending U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war against Iranian proxies in Yemen. The vote took place just hours after two senior Trump cabinet members, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, pleaded senators not to take steps that could harm the U.S.-Saudi alliance.
On Thursday, Trump is expected to leave Washington for Buenos Aires to attend the G-20 meeting. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman is also expected to attend the gathering, despite legal attempts in Argentina to hold him accountable for the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. For both Trump and the young crown prince, Wednesday’s embarrassing defeat in the Senate could not have come at a worse timing.
The vote showed growing dissatisfaction among senators over how the administration has treated both the disastrous war in Yemen and the Khashoggi crisis. In particular, senators expressed their anger over the fact that the administration has been refusing to allow CIA Director Gina Haspel to brief Congress over the crisis with Saudi Arabia. This has caused even senators considered closely aligned with Trump, such as Lindsey Graham (R-SC), to strongly criticize the administration.
While it’s not automatically guaranteed that the Senate’s decision to allow a debate over ending American support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen will actually lead to a cessation of that support, this result seems highly likely at the moment. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), an outspoken critic of the Saudi policy, said on Wednesday that “it is now a matter of when, not if, the unconstitutional U.S.-Saudi war will end.”
Pocan also added that the House of Representatives should follow in the Senate’s footsteps and hold its own vote on the continuation of American support for the war in Yemen. Such a scenario is almost certain to happen once the new Democracy majority will take over the House in early January.
If the biggest losers of the vote on Wednesday were Trump and the Saudi crown prince, perhaps the most evident winner was Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has made Yemen the top issue on his foreign policy agenda over the past year.
The vote on Wednesday was pushed by Sanders along with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah. For Sanders, this vote was part of a broader focus on Saudi Arabia. He has publicly criticized the country’s leadership, and especially Crown Prince Mohammad, in speeches and articles.
During a speech before the conference of the left-wing Jewish group J Street in 2017, Sanders mocked the Crown Prince for his lavish spending on yachts and vacation homes, and wondered how many Palestinian refugees could have benefited from the sums of money the Crown Prince chose to spend on his luxurious lifestyle.
Hours before the vote, Sanders urged his fellow Senators to support it by stating: “Do not forget: it was a U.S. bomb that killed 40 children on a school bus in Yemen in August—some of the many thousands of civilians who have died in this horrific, Saudi-led war.”
Like Sanders, Murphy has also highlighted the war in Yemen for a long time. He was one of the first lawmakers in Washington to criticize Saudi Arabia for its conduct in Yemen, as early as 2015. After the vote on Wednesday, Murphy said that “this is a big first step, and it sends a message to this administration that they need to rethink their policy on Saudi Arabia or Congress will do it for them.”
While the composition of the Senate will become a bit more favorable for Trump in January, since Republicans have gained two seats in the midterm elections, the fact that 14 Republicans voted together with the Democrats on this specific issue, doesn’t bode well for the President’s goal of continuing the alliance with Saudi Arabia. Even if ten of those Republicans will eventually change their mind and be persuaded by the administration’s arguments – a very high bar to pass – that still won’t be enough to stop the Senate from limiting Trump’s support for the war in Yemen.
Among the most senior Republicans who defied Trump and voted in favor of the motion were Senators Bob Corker (R-TN, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee), Rob Portman (R-OH), Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Susan Collins (R-ME). Senator Mitch McConell (R-KY), the Majority Leader, voted against the motion, as did Senators and former Presidential candidates Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL).
Rubio explained after the vote that in his view, “Pressuring for stronger response to Khashoggi murder right thing to do,but pulling support from Saudi’s on Yemen wrong way to do it. Pulling support will result in more civilian casualties,make peace less likely and increase chance of broader regional war.”
What’s really going on? Surely, none of these seasoned politicians had any illusions about how bloody all of these Arab/Muslim regimes have always been?