Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders withdrew his proposal to vote on the Yemen War Powers Resolution on December 13, 2022. As Dave DeCamp noted that this resolution will halt US backing directed towards Saudi Arabia and its coalition’s war against Yemen.
On the Senate floor, Sanders stated that he was informed of the Biden govt.’s opposition to the resolution before the planned vote. In other words, if the resolution had reached his desk, President Joe Biden would have vetoed it.
According to The Intercept, the Biden administration was lobbying senators to vote “no” on the bill. Democrats began publicly opposing Sanders’ plan earlier on Dec. 13.
Sanders’ justification for not voting was that the Biden administration will work with Congress to end the conflict in Yemen. He said that the Biden administration wanted to “engage with us on developing wording that would be mutually agreeable,” and emphasized that if that didn’t actually happen, he would keep working to end the conflict through a resolution.
Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah both openly supported the resolution to stop the Yemeni war. In the instance of the US House, a similar resolution was presented and has gathered up 118 cosponsors, that included 10 Republicans.
Yemen’s civil war has taken a turn for the worse since it began in 2014. The Saudi govt., which has gone to considerable efforts to restore Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi’s government to power, has been roundly denounced by international observers for indiscriminate airstrikes that have killed an appalling number of civilians. Throughout the fight, the US government has contributed considerable amounts of arms and intelligence to the Saudis.
In the most recent stages of this fight, Iran was alleged to have supplied weapons to the Houthis. The present turmoil in Yemen has provided Iran with a perfect strategic chance to make Saudi Arabia, its main Islamic adversary in the Middle East, sweat.
According to UN estimates, at least 377,000 people had been killed in Yemen’s conflict by the end of 2021. Aside from the atrocities actually occurring in this conflict, the US has no pressing interest in Yemen. It’s ridiculous to even think that Yemen poses a threat to the United States.
Overall, this is only one of the numerous geopolitical squabbles that the national security establishment would like the US to get involved in so that defense contractors’ pockets remain full and foreign policy think tank wonks can keep trying to lecture the public about the advantages of remaking the entire globe in America’s dysfunctional image.
Author: Steven Sinclaire
