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Steinhardt 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