World - US: An American business magazine's report touched on US arms sales during Biden's presidency and his promises regarding the war on Yemen.

President Biden signaled that his approach to selling arms around the world would mark a sharp departure from the policies of his predecessor Donald Trump, Forbes report said. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has yet to follow through on the president’s promising early rhetoric.

When it came to arms sales policy, the report added, the first few months of the Biden and Trump administrations couldn’t have been more different. Trump chose Saudi Arabia as the destination for his first foreign trip, and upon landing there he promptly announced a $110 billion arms deal. Trump persisted in this approach throughout his presidency, even after the Saudi regime’s murder of US-resident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and its continuing, indiscriminate use of US arms in its devastating war in Yemen.

Forbes magazine pointed out that in his first foreign policy speech, Biden pledged to end US support for “offensive operations” in Yemen along with “relevant arms sales.” The stage seemed to be set for a dramatically different approach to arms sales, one that recognized the value of restraint and elevated human rights concerns within the decision-making process.

Unfortunately, the magazine added, the Biden administration’s apparent commitment to arms sales restraint began to unravel within months of his initial foreign policy address. 

The report noted that the Biden team signed off on the $24 billion arms package to the UAE despite that nation’s ongoing interference in Yemen, its violation of the United Nations arms embargo on the warring parties in Libya, and its internal human rights abuses. Deals for air-to-air missiles and maintenance of attack helicopters for Saudi Arabia followed soon thereafter. The government of the Philippines – one of the most repressive regimes in the world – was offered a multi-billion-dollar deal for F-16 combat aircraft. And the administration relaxed Congressionally mandated human rights conditions on the repressive al-Sisi regime in Egypt.

The report emphasized that none of the reasons behind these sales justify arming human rights abusers and enabling reckless military establishments like those in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or the Philippines.  

US Role in Yemen War

In Yemen, over a quarter of a million people have died since the commencement of the Saudi/UAE-led coalition’s intervention there in 2015, and millions more are at risk of starvation due to a Saudi-imposed blockade on air flights and fuel imports, the report added. The US role in enabling this mass slaughter is not only a moral stain on the reputation of the United States, it is a destabilizing force that undermines any hope of fostering peace and stability in the Gulf region and the broader Middle East. The appropriate policy should be to cut off essential US maintenance and spare parts – without which the Saudi military could not function – as leverage to end the blockade and push the Saudi regime to negotiate in good faith towards an inclusive peace agreement to end the war. Anything less represents a moral and strategic failure of the highest order.

The report emphasized that there is still time for the Biden administration to change course. If the policy emphasizes human rights over narrow economic and short-term strategic considerations it could set the stage for an approach more in line with President Biden’s initial rhetoric on arms sales. 

On the other hand, President Obama’s Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) directive made ample references to human rights and restraint, but that did not prevent the administration from offering tens of billions of dollars in weaponry to Saudi Arabia, much of which was put to use in the Yemen war. 

 

#Yemen #US #Arms Sale #US-Saudi Aggression #Saudi Arabia About 2 years