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US Senate defies Trump, rebuking Saudi Arabia after Khashoggi killing

SHAFAQNA- US Senate on Thursday delivered back-to-back rebukes of President Donald Trump‘s embrace of Saudi Arabia, first voting to end U.S. participation in the Saudi-led war in Yemen and then unanimously approving a measure blaming the kingdom’s crown prince for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

A slim majority of senators voted Thursday to end U.S. support for a Saudi Arabian military campaign in Yemen that has been blamed for tens of thousands of deaths and mass starvation. The vote provides the biggest rebuke yet of a three-year U.S. policy that the Trump administration says it has no plans to end, huffingtonpost reported.

US, moral authority and national interests

Can the United States exercise its moral authority in foreign policy without giving its vital national interests short shrift?

That question has permeated much of the debate in Congress in recent days over US relations with longtime ally Saudi Arabia.

To a degree not seen in decades, senators of both parties have asserted the importance of factoring in America’s long-held values and global role as moral guide as they wrestle with two key questions: How to address the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and how involved the US should be in the Saudi intervention in the Yemen conflict.

Both Republican and Democratic senators say at least some balance between values on one side, and security and economic interests on the other, must be restored in relations with a key Mideast ally.

The United Nations has deemed war-torn Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, and indignation in the US has mounted with evidence of US-supplied munitions hitting civilian targets in Saudi Arabia’s air offensive, csmonitor told.

The Senate on Thursday adopted a war powers resolution that would require the Trump administration to end US support for the Saudi campaign in Yemen.

The resolution draws on congressional authority defined in the 1973 War Powers Act, legislation that reflected the heightened congressional activity in foreign policy matters during the Vietnam War era. Congress had never actually used the authority granted in the act until this week.

The U.S Senate war powers resolution is a largely symbolic rebuke of both the Trump administration and Saudi Arabia, since the House is unlikely to follow the Senate’s lead and adopt its own resolution this year. But it likely signals just the beginning of pressure for change in US-Saudi relations.

A resolution condemning MBS sponsored killing of Khashoggi

Shortly after passage of the war powers resolution, the Senate passed on a voice vote a separate resolution sponsored by Sen. Bob Corker (R) of Tennessee specifically condemning Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the alleged state-sponsored killing of Mr. Khashoggi. The resolution also calls on Saudi Arabia to “moderate its increasingly erratic foreign policy.”

The resolution is symbolic

But the passage of the resolution is symbolic, at least for the moment. It will not legally require President Donald Trump to withdraw American intelligence and logistical assistance for the Saudi effort because the GOP has quashed attempts to pass similar bills in the House this session and, even if passage there was possible, Trump has already threatened to veto the resolution.

Moreover, a bipartisan group of senators is promising a broad Saudi sanctions bill early next year.

Both Republican and Democratic senators say at least some balance between values on one side, and security and economic interests on the other, must be restored in relations with a key Mideast ally.

At the core of much of this action is a sense that America’s moral compass has gone missing in guiding relations with Saudi Arabia – and that at least some balance between values on one side, and security and economic interests on the other, must be restored to those relations.

Together, the actions represent an unambiguous rejection of Trump’s continued defense of Saudi leaders in the face of a CIA assessment that concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman most probably ordered and monitored Khashoggi’s killing Oct. 2 inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The moves suggest a bipartisan majority of senators will pursue broader punitive measures when Congress regroups next year – including sanctions and a halt to weapons transfers – despite the administration’s objections, stamfordadvocate told.

 

Read more from Shafaqna:

Aid groups urged US to end military support in Yemen’s civil war

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