This weekend, President Trump will unveil a proposed mammoth arms sale to Saudi Arabia. The pro-Gulf foreign policy establishment in the United States and the Middle East will cheer it as an investment in a new security arrangement for our Sunni partners in the Middle East to combat extremism and fight against Iranian expansion. It was negotiated by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who has zero experience in foreign relations generally, or Saudi arms sales specifically. It appears the Trump administration is counting on the country with the worst human rights record in the region to enforce peace and security in the Middle East.
The arms sale is a terrible idea, and I want you to know why.
First, let’s look at what’s going to happen with these weapons. Piled on top of this enormous arms lot are precision-guided munitions that President Obama would not sell the Saudis. That’s not because the Obama folks didn’t like selling weapons to the Saudis — Obama sold more weapons and gear to Saudi Arabia in eight years than all other previous administrations combined. No, Obama withheld precision-guided munitions because the Saudis were using U.S.-provided munitions to repeatedly target civilian and humanitarian sites in their bombing campaign inside Yemen, despite regular protests from the United States. Thousands of civilians inside Yemen have been killed during the civil war, many by the Saudi-led coalition, and today, the country is on the brink of famine in part because the Saudis have intentionally destroyed transit hubs and key bridges, and blocked the delivery of humanitarian aid into Yemen. As we speak, millions of Yemenis are being radicalized against the country they blame for the civilian deaths: the United States. By selling the Saudis these precision-guided weapons more — not fewer — civilians will be killed because it is Saudi Arabia’s strategy to starve Yemenis to death to increase their own leverage at the negotiating table. They couldn’t do this without the weapons we are selling them...
