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8 | AUGUST 6 • 2020
1942 - 2020
Covering and Connecting
Jewish Detroit Every Week
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How to reach us see page 12
Views
J
ewish Americans, maybe
more so than other
Americans, have reason
to pay close attention to U.S.
foreign policy. Were it not for
U.S. intervention in World
War II, the Nazi
genocide of
European Jewry
may have con-
tinued unabat-
ed. Without
Washington’
s
assistance in
the Yom Kippur
War, Israel may not have been
able to so soundly defeat its
Arab neighbors, a precursor
to its current regional securi-
ty and continued occupation
of the Palestinian territo-
ries. So, Jewish Americans
should understand the folly
of Washington’
s ongoing sup-
port for the Saudi-led mili-
tary intervention in Yemen.
We should correspondingly
demand from Washington an
immediate end to U.S. involve-
ment in the Yemen conflict.
While the war in Yemen
started in 2014 between the
separatists of the Houthi move-
ment and the central govern-
ment, it soon grew to include
Iran (which backs the former)
and Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates (which
back the latter). Ongoing aerial
bombings and blockades have
caused widespread maiming
and starvation of millions of
civilians — the U.N. has called
Yemen “the world’
s largest
humanitarian crisis.”
Since Saudi Arabia began
aerial strikes in 2015,
Washington has provided
intelligence and, until 2018,
in-flight refueling of Saudi
bombers. That Washington
is backing unhumanitarian
regimes is not in itself wrong;
the U.S. actively supported
authoritarian regimes, from
Turkey to Taiwan, throughout
the Cold War because compe-
tition with the Soviet Union
was preeminent. But to sup-
port such immoral actions as
the Saudi bombing of Yemeni
school buses and weddings for
no strategic benefit is as appall-
ing as it is senseless.
Washington should be
focused on containing its main
great-power rival, China, or
addressing international issues
such as nuclear proliferation,
climate change and disease.
Assisting Saudi Arabia (which,
despite being a U.S. “strategic
partner,” killed and dismem-
bered a U.S. resident in 2018)
in its faraway, unproductive
expedition drains effort and
taxpayer dollars from these
more pressing problems.
In addition to crowding
out higher strategic priorities,
the Yemen conflict actively
impedes the desirable and
long-sought extrication of the
U.S. from the Middle East.
Supporting Riyadh only makes
Tehran more convinced that
the U.S. is attempting to tip the
scales of power in the region; it
turn, Iran acts more aggressive-
ly. Thus, by providing essential
support to Saudi operations
in Yemen, the U.S. sowed the
seeds for Iran’
s alignment with
the Houthis.
Some warn that abandoning
the Saudis will drive Riyadh to
simply turn to other patrons,
eliminating U.S. leverage. But it
does not appear U.S. arms sales
to Riyadh have translated into
any real leverage so far.
Of course, the prospect of
a Houthi-controlled Yemen
may provoke fears of a terror-
ist haven similar to pre-9/11,
Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. But
this simple formulation ignores
the countless other factors that
enabled al-Qaeda’
s rise, includ-
ing Washington’
s dual contain-
ment strategy and stationing
of troops in Saudi Arabia.
The supposed alternatives to
U.S. involvement in Yemen
— a more hostile Iran and a
breeding ground for extremists
— are in fact products of inter-
ventions like the current one.
Ending involvement would
thus further American security.
Given how counterproduc-
tive U.S. involvement in Yemen
has been, one may wonder how
it has managed to persist. The
answer can be found in the
decline of institutional checks
on misuse of power. Congress’
s
constitutionally-mandated
Ethan Kessler
essay
Washington Should End Involvement in Yemen
continued on page 10