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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
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PRO-CON
Should the US cut ties with
Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi affair?
AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis
Mourners protesting the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi hold a candlelight vigil outside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul last month.
PRO: Cut ties with
Saudi and stop supplying
its bombing of Yemen
W
ASHINGTON — Each day since
worst humanitarian crisis in the world today,
Oct. 2, new evidence has emerged with 14 million people on the brink of star-
vation, according to the UN.
that the killing of Washington
Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a resident
The New York Times editorial board has
of Virginia, was a premeditated murder.
noted that the Saudis were trying to “starve
At the same time, it is also increasingly
Yemen into submission,” a strategy that
clear that the murder was approved at
constituted “war crimes.”
the highest levels of the Saudi Arabian
Until recently, the Saudi and UAE bomb-
ers were dependent on mid-air refueling
government, most likely including the
current ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin from U.S. planes. The U.S. also provides
assistance with targeting and intelligence
Salman.
The Saudis at first maintained that
and logistics.
Khashoggi had left the Saudi consulate in
There are currently bipartisan bills in
Istanbul, Turkey, alive; they then claimed,
both Houses of Congress to cut off U.S.
incredulously, that he was killed there in the participation in the war.
course of a fist fight.
House Concurrent Resolution
But we also know that a team of
138, introduced by Ro Khanna
15 Saudis, including “an autopsy
(D-Calif.), has 56 co-sponsors.
expert” and others with links to
These include high-level leadership,
Saudi high officials and intelligence,
such as the ranking Democratic
was flown in at dawn on Oct. 2.
members of the Foreign Affairs,
In the past four years, the United
Armed Services, Appropriations,
MARK
States has supplied 60 percent of
and Judiciary Committees.
WEISBROT
Saudi arms purchases — many of
The Senate bill, led by Bernie
which are used to kill civilians in
Sanders (I-Vt.), and Mike Lee
Yemen.
(R-Utah), got 44 votes in February and is
Should the U.S. government cut off
likely to get a majority in the wake of the
weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in response
Khashoggi murder.
to this atrocity? Of course it should. But
These bills have been introduced under
President Donald Trump has opposed this
the 1973 War Powers Resolution, a law that
measure, and The Washington Post reports
reinforced the Constitution’s provision that
that Congress might not even have a chance Congress should decide whether or not the
to vote on it.
US military should be deployed in war.
However, there is something vastly
Under the two resolutions, if the
more important and obvious that the U.S.
Congress votes to end U.S. military partic-
ipation in the Saudi war, the president will
Congress can do — regardless of what
have 30 days to withdraw.
Trump wants — about Saudi atrocities. The
In the coming months, tens of thousands
Congress can stop U.S. participation in the
of people across the country will be contact-
Saudis’ genocidal war in Yemen.
ing their representatives and senators to per-
Since 2015, the U.S. military has been
suade them to vote to end this war that has
providing mid-air refueling to Saudi and
nothing to do with U.S. national security.
UAE planes conducting airstrikes that have
They will be up against some of the
killed thousands of civilians in Yemen —
including a school bus with 40 children that most powerful interests in the world: the
military-industrial complex — including
was hit by a U.S.-supplied bomb in August.
These bombing raids also have hit water, the weapons manufacturers that Trump has
sewage, and other vital infrastructure, caus- expressed concerns about — as well as the
ing thousands more deaths and a million
national security state. But if enough people
people infected with cholera.
participate in this effort, the war will end.
But most catastrophically, the air
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Cen-
ter for Economic and Policy Research and
strikes and the Saudi blockade and siege of
the president of Just Foreign Policy.
Yemen’s major port city have caused the
CON: Khashoggi’s killing was
despicable, but US needs Saudi
help in keeping Mideast peace
W
ASHINGTON — Let’s be clear:
Directly or through proxies, Tehran now
the Saudi murder of Washington
controls in large measure the governments
Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi
of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq; it’s propping up
Syria’s Bashar Assad as he slaughters his own
was a despicable act by a regime that, even
people; and it’s sending increasingly lethal
after enacting modest reforms recently, still
weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, just across
tolerates virtually no domestic dissent.
Israel’s border.
We should all be outraged, we should
Washington plans to reimpose sanctions
demand the truth, and we should look for
against Iran next month that it hopes will cut
ways to condemn such action in the clearest
all Iranian oil exports; these sanctions will
terms, such as by sanctioning the regime and
force companies to choose between doing
the individuals involved.
But let’s be clear about something else: The business with Iran and with America.
U.S. officials also hope to convince
world can be, as Thomas Hobbes said of the
SWIFT, the global financial messaging
natural state of humanity, “nasty, brutish, and
service, to sever ties with Iran, which would
short.”
more fully isolate the Islamic
Though, particularly in the post-
Republic from the global economy.
World War II period, the United States
Among other things, Washington
has promoted freedom and democ-
racy, it also has made its necessary
needs Riyadh, the region’s leading
Sunni Muslim government, to provide
“deals with devils” in the interests of
enough oil to calm oil markets — if
arms control, regional stability and
U.S. sanctions against Tehran, the
other short-term demands.
LAWRENCE leading Shia power, rattle the markets
Washington’s relationship with
J. HAAS
enough to potentially send oil prices
Riyadh is one such deal, and our
sky-high and threaten the global
urgent needs across the Middle East
economy.
do not allow us the luxury of making the
Tehran, which seeks regional hegemony,
morally pure decision of severing all ties with
is a major concern of not just Washington but
the kingdom.
also of such unlikely allies as Jerusalem and
The U.S.-Saudi relationship dates back
Riyadh.
to an early 1945 meeting between Franklin
Though they share no peace treaty, Saudi-
Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz aboard the
USS Quincy in the Suez Canal, in which FDR Israeli relations have never been warmer or
more public, driven by their joint fear of, and
agreed to provide the Saudis with support and
military training in exchange for Saudi oil and cooperation to contain, an expansionist Iran
that wants to destroy Israel and weaken Saudi
its support for the United States in the region.
Arabia.
That meeting came four years after FDR,
To be sure, Saudi Arabia is ruled by an
in his State of the Union address, expressed
intolerant, sometimes vicious, regime.
hopes that, after the war, people all over the
Over time, we should encourage the king-
world would enjoy “four freedoms” — of
dom to expand its modest reforms and provide
speech and religion and from want and fear.
more freedom to its people. That’s no different
While idealistic, however, FDR had no
than what we’ve done for decades with auto-
illusions that the Saudi kingdom would
cratic allies and adversaries alike.
abandon its hardline Islamic rule and provide
For U.S. interests in the region, however,
such freedoms to its people. He simply made a
Saudi Arabia is clearly a lesser evil than Iran.
necessary deal with this devil.
Put simply, we need Riyadh too much, as
Fast forward to today’s Middle East, where
we seek to contain an insidious force in the
the adage “the enemy of my enemy is my
Middle East, to sever ties with it.
friend” often applies.
Lawrence J. Haas, former communica-
The United States needs Saudi support to
tions director for Vice President Al Gore, is a
rein in the America-hating, terror-sponsoring,
nuclear weapons-pursuing, regional destabiliz- Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy
ing and human rights-abusing regime in Iran.
Council.