Tom Malinowski: “Let me begin by saying what this amendment will not do. It will not end our security relationship with Saudi Arabia. It…”

“Let me begin by saying what this amendment will not do. It will not end our security relationship with Saudi Arabia. It will not prevent us from helping the Saudis defend themselves against the Houthis or Iran or anybody else. It won't prevent us from working with them to deal with maritime threats in the Persian Gulf or from sharing intelligence about terrorism. It will not, in other words, preclude us from doing anything that is in America's national security interest. All it will do is stop something that is categorically harmful to our national interest: the provision of offensive weapons that enable Saudi Arabia to keep defying our advice by bombing Yemen and prolonging the war there. There is a reason why people say that this war has caused the world's worst humanitarian crisis. More than 200,000 civilians have been killed or died of starvation. While the Houthis are to blame for much of this, Saudi and UAE airstrikes are responsible for two-thirds of Yemeni civilian casualties. There was a strike on a funeral where more than 150 civilians were killed, a strike on a school bus that killed 40 kids, on a Save the Children Hospital, on a wedding. These were not mistakes. These were deliberate and precise attacks. And everybody in Yemen knows that the bombs causing the suffering are made in the United States. Who benefits from this? Certainly not us. From a strategic perspective, the only winner is Iran.…”