A broad majority of Senate lawmakers on Wednesday voted down a resolution aimed at canceling the sale of U.S. military weapons to Saudi Arabia, over fears that the country is undermining one of the United States’ critical alliances in the Middle East.
Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., offered a resolution disapproving the sale, but opponents made a motion to table it, and the motion passed easily, 71-27.
“We can’t ask our Middle East allies to fight harder and do more and not provide them with the weaponry to do it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Wednesday. “I think Saudi Arabia is a valuable partner in the war on terror. If you want to lose Saudi Arabia as an ally, be careful what you wish for.”
Paul and Murphy argued that helping the Saudis fight a civil war in Yemen had implicated the United States in attacks on civilians and strengthened terrorist groups in the country. Other senators, however, countered that the Saudis were helping to prevent Iran from dominating Yemen, and that withdrawing support for the fight would cause the Saudis to see the United States as an unreliable partner in the region.
The senators who wanted to cancel the deal had a variety of motives and goals for doing so. Murphy protested that the Saudis have initiated a bombing campaign against Yemeni civilians and suggested that the alliance needs to be reconsidered, if not quite broken. “I do think it’s time to question whether this alliance is as clear and as solid as many of us may have been told that it was,” he said Monday.
Paul and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, were more provisional, suggesting the arms cancellation could take place as a fairly narrow action.
“Saudi Arabia has long been an American ally in a very volatile region, and I believe strengthening that alliance should be a priority of our foreign policy in the Middle East,” Lee said Wednesday while arguing for the cancellation of the deal. “[M]any security experts point out that, by supporting Saudi Arabia’s fight against the Houthis, we could be unintentionally assisting al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula and ISIS affiliates in Yemen.”
The Paul-Murphy resolution is one of two proposals voted on this month that highlight how the relationship with Saudi Arabia has gotten more complicated over the last few years. Saudi Arabia provides invaluable counterterrorism assistance, but the monarchy is also responsible for propagating theological teachings that glorify violent jihad.
Although the Paul-Murphy proposal failed, Congress recently passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which Saudi Arabia also opposes.
“I certainly think that they’re concerned about the relationship,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “They’re very concerned about the actions that are being taken.”
President Obama has pledged to veto the bill, but Congress is likely to override that veto, despite concerns that the bill will alienate Saudi Arabia. “Unless there are 34 people that are willing to fall on their sword over this issue it’s going to happen,” Corker said.
