Helping Saudi Arabia bomb Yemen is not a plan for peace

“We all want this conflict to end,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday of the war in Yemen. “We all want to improve the dire humanitarian situation. But the Trump administration fundamentally disagrees that curbing our assistance to the Saudi-led coalition is the way to achieve these goals,” he continued.

“The way to alleviate the Yemeni people’s suffering isn’t to prolong the conflict by handicapping our partners in the fight, but by giving the Saudi-led coalition the support needed to defeat Iranian-backed rebels and ensure a just peace.”

Pompeo’s remarks were a last-ditch effort to discourage the House from following in the Senate’s footsteps by passing a resolution requiring the Trump administration to stop supporting the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen’s civil war.

As the House already approved a similar measure and now must merely vote again on the Senate’s edits, Pompeo’s pushback is likely to fail. Another “yes” vote in the House would complete the first such rebuke of executive war-making under the War Powers Act of 1973, though President Trump is expected to veto.

Whatever the revolution’s final fate, Pompeo’s claims are specious and false. There is no reason to believe the Saudi intervention has minimized the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, widely considered the world’s most acute. Read more

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