One year after President Biden pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led military campaign to oust rebel Houthis from power in Yemen, the administration continues to support Saudi Arabia despite condemnation from war opponents inside Congress and human rights groups.
Yemen’s woes are well known by now. The war that began with the Houthi takeover of Sana’a in 2014 has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, left millions on the brink of starvation, and shattered a once-vibrant civic society. Since Saudi Arabia intervened in 2015, the U.S. has sold billions in arms and provided critical logistical support to the kingdom.
Even after the president’s pledge to cut off the flow of offensive weapons, the administration provided $1 billion in arms to the Saudis in 2021.
In this episode of History As It Happens, Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft discusses why multiple U.S. presidents have refused to disengage from the war, despite the human toll.
“The U.S. tends to only condemn acts of atrocity by the Houthis and they just express concern when the Saudis launch an airstrike that kills 90 people, for example, as recently happened when they struck a detention center,” said Ms. Sheline, who has done field work in Yemen and across the Middle East.
“In general, the U.S. is quite clear that rather than acting as a neutral arbiter here, [Biden] is maintaining the Trump policy of open support for the Saudis.”
The U.S. has in effect picked sides in a civil war ravaging a nation with an enormously complex history, a nation once ruled by a corrupt autocrat – Ali Abdullah Saleh – who began receiving U.S. military aid after the al-Qaeda attack on the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000.
To listen to Ms. Sheline discuss why the U.S. should end support for Saudi Arabia, download this episode of History As It Happens.
