US ends ban on offensive arms sale to Riyadh, eyeing Saudi help on Gaza and Iran
Biden slapped sanctions on the desert kingdom after thousands of civilians were estimated killed in its war on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels
The United States confirmed Monday it would resume sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, as concerns over human rights in the kingdom’s Yemen war give way to US hopes that Riyadh will help resolve the conflict in Gaza, and again assist in repelling an Iranian attack on Israel.
More than three years after imposing limits on human rights grounds over Saudi strikes in Yemen, the US State Department said it would return to weapons sales “in regular order, with appropriate congressional notification and consultation.”
“Saudi Arabia has remained a close strategic partner of the United States, and we look forward to enhancing that partnership,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
US President Joe Biden took office in 2021 pledging a new approach to Saudi Arabia that emphasized human rights, and immediately announced that the administration would send only “defensive” weaponry to the longtime US arms customer.
Thousands of civilians were estimated to have been killed in Saudi-led airstrikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have taken over much of Yemen since 2014.
Geopolitical considerations have changed markedly since then. The United Nations, with US support, brokered a truce in Yemen in early 2022 that has largely held.
Since the truce, “there has not been a single Saudi airstrike into Yemen and cross-border fire from Yemen into Saudi Arabia has largely stopped,” Patel said. “The Saudis since that time have met their end of the deal, and we are prepared to meet ours.”
Saudi role in Gaza war
It is now the United States, Britain and recently Israel that have been striking Houthi targets in Yemen, with Saudi Arabia content to watch from the sidelines.
The Houthis have been firing missiles at commercial ships in the vital Red Sea in professed solidarity with Palestinians during the war in Gaza, which was sparked when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel on October 7 to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
In a bid to find a long-term solution, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has repeatedly traveled to Saudi Arabia to discuss a package of US incentives if the kingdom recognizes Israel.
Saudi Arabia has sought US security guarantees, a continued flow of weapons and potentially a civilian nuclear deal if it normalizes relations with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made normalization with Arab states a top goal and no prize would be as big as Saudi Arabia, guardian of Islam’s two holiest sites.
But Saudi Arabia says it cannot act without progress on a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Biden administration has pushed for a Palestinian state as the US seeks a diplomatic way out of the Gaza war, but Netanyahu and his far-right allies bitterly oppose Palestinian statehood.
Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas, a progressive member of Biden’s Democratic Party, said that Saudi Arabia still had a “troubling track record” on human rights.
“I supported the Biden administration’s initial decision to pause offensive arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and I hope to see compelling evidence that Saudi Arabia has changed its conduct,” he said.
Before October 7, Gulf Arab states had been moving closer to Israel, in large part out of shared hostility to Iran.
Saudi Arabia cooperated with the US, along with Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, in repelling some 300 missiles and drones that Iran had fired in its first-ever attack on Israel the night of April 13-14. The attack came after an alleged Israeli airstrike killed a top Revolutionary Guard commander at an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus on April 1.
The US is again hoping for support from Arab partners as Iran threatens another reprisal against Israel over the July 31, killing Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its role in the assassination.
