The field lies mostly under the Persian Gulf. Qatar and Iran both have access to that field:
Natural Gas Pipeline from Iran to Iraq could be Ready in 20 Days - Oil & Gas 360
The field holds the World's largest supply of natural gas. All the world is still addicted to petrochemicals and all the World is interested in getting gas from the field.. Immense wealth goes to the country that can deliver the gas to wealthy Europe. The slaughter of Syrians is directly related to a struggle over whether Iran or Qatar will win that prize. Russia prefers that Iran win, and so is supporting the Syrian Government, which has already agreed to Iran's pipeline to the Mediterranean. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Cooperation Council are supporting Qatar. The United States-- too long backing Saudi Arabia' Monopoly on gas prices, is ambivalently supporting Qatar and is distracted by irrational domestic fears of the Islamic State, whose main goal is control of Mecca and Medina -- Saudi Arabia's greatest fear.. The news article in The Guardian, below, indicated that Iran is on its way to winning the Prize. The United States would be well advised to distance itself from urdrous Erdoğan and the equally brutal Saudi Arabia and form economic and political alliances with Iran and the rest of Asia. Saudi Arabia's years of ruling the world through its monopoly on oil is coming to an end. The World, if it does not recover from oil addiction in time, will see a rise in Iranian power, and Iran will see its brutal theocracy modernize long before Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi government gives up its ancient brutal polity. The Guardian's article suggests that Iran is progressing steadily tower winning the prize. We'll see.
Not far from Mosul, a large military force is finalising plans for an advance that has been more than three decades in the making. The troops are Shia militiamen who have fought against the Islamic State, but they have not been given a direct role in the coming attack to free Iraq’s second city from its clutches. Instead, while the Iraqi army attacks Mosul from the south, the militias will take up a blocking position to the west, stopping Isis forces from fleeing towards their last redoubt of Raqqa in Syria. Their absence is aimed at reassuring the Sunni Muslims of Mosul that the imminent recapture of the city is not a sectarian push against them. However, among Iraq’s Shia-dominated army the militia’s decision to remain aloof from the battle of Mosul is being seen as a rebuff.Yet among the militias’ backers in Iran there is little concern. Since their inception, the Shia irregulars have made their name on the battlefields of Iraq, but they have always been central to Tehran’s ambitions elsewhere. By not helping to retake Mosul, the militias are free to drive one of its most coveted projects – securing an arc of influence across Iraq and Syria that would end at the Mediterranean Sea.
The strip of land to the west of Mosul in which the militias will operate is essential to that goal. After 12 years of conflict in Iraq and an even more savage conflict in Syria, Iran is now closer than ever to securing a land corridor that will anchor it in the region – and potentially transform the Islamic Republic’s presence on Arab lands. “They have been working extremely hard on this,” said a European official who has monitored Iran’s role in both wars for the past five years. “This is a matter of pride for them on one hand and pragmatism on the other. They will be able to move people and supplies between the Mediterranean and Tehran whenever they want, and they will do so along safe routes that are secured by their people, or their proxies.”
Interviews during the past four months with regional officials, influential Iraqis and residents of northern Syria have established that the land corridor has slowly taken shape since 2014. It is a complex route that weaves across Arab Iraq, through the Kurdish north, into Kurdish north-eastern Syria and through the battlefields north of Aleppo, where Iran and its allies are prevailing on the ground. It has been assembled under the noses of friend and foe, the latter of which has begun to sound the alarm in recent weeks. Turkey has been especially opposed, fearful of what such a development means for Iran’s relationship with the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ party), the restive Kurds in its midst, on whom much of the plan hinges. The plan has been coordinated by senior government and security officials in Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus, all of whom defer to the head of the spearhead of Iran’s foreign policy, the Quds force of the Revolutionary Guards, headed by Major General Qassem Suleimani, who has run Iran’s wars in Syria and Iraq. It involves demographic shifts, which have already taken place in central Iraq and are under way in northern Syria. And it relies heavily on the support of a range of allies, who are not necessarily aware of the entirety of the project but have a developed vested interest in securing separate legs.
Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, head of Iran’s all-powerful Quds force. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images
The corridor starts at the entry points that Iran has used to send supplies and manpower into Iraq over the past 12 years. They are the same routes that were used by the Quds force to run a guerrilla war against US forces when they occupied the country – a campaign fought by the same Iraqi militias that have since been immersed in the fight against Isis.The groups, Asa’ib ahl al-Haq, Keta’ib Hezbollah and their offshoots, accounted for close to 25% of all US battlefield casualties, senior US officials have said. They have become even more influential since US forces left the country. And in one of modern warfare’s starkest ironies, in the two years since US troops have returned to Iraq to fight Isis they have at times fought under US air cover.
The route crosses through Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, around 60 miles north of Baghdad. A mixed Sunni/Shia area for hundreds of years, Diyala became one of the main sectarian flashpoint areas during Iraq’s civil war. Along roads that have been secured by militias, which are known locally as “popular mobilisation units”, it then moves northwest into areas that were occupied by Isis as recently as several months ago.
The town of Shirqat in Salaheddin province is one important area. It was taken by militias along with Iraqi forces on 22 September, delivering another blow to the terrorist group and an important boost to Iran’s ambitions.
The militias are now present in large numbers in Shirqat and readying to move towards the western edge of Mosul, to a point around 50 miles southeast of Sinjar, which – at this point – is the next leg in the corridor. Between the militia forces and Sinjar is the town of Tal Afar, an Isis stronghold, which has been a historical home of both Sunni and Shia Turkmen – ancestral kin of Turkey.A senior intelligence official said the leg between Tel Afar and Sinjar is essential to the plan. Sinjar is an ancestral home to the Yazidi population, which was forced to flee in August 2014 after Isis invaded the city, killing all the men it could find and enslaving women. It wasrecaptured by Iraqi Kurdish forces last November. And ever since PKK forces from across the Syrian border have taken up residence in the city and across the giant monolith, Mt Sinjar, behind it. The PKK fighters are being paid by the Iraqi government and have been incorporated into the popular mobilisation units. Iraqi and western intelligence officials say the move was approved by Iraq’s national security adviser, Falah Fayadh.
An influential Iraqi tribal sheikh, Abdulrahim al-Shammari, emerges as a central figure further to the north. He has a power base near the Rabia crossing into Syria, receives support from the popular mobilisation units and is close to the Assad regime in Damascus. “I believe that in our area Iran does not have very much influence,” he told the Observer in Baghdad. “There is nobody here, no major power that is helping us with weapons. Ideologically speaking, the PKK is affiliated with the Kurds of this area, so there is no problem having them here.”
From the Rabia crossing, the mooted route goes past the towns of Qamishli and Kobani towards Irfin, which are all controlled by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. Throughout the war the YPG (People’s Protection Units) has hedged its bets, at times allying with the US against Isis, and at other times siding with the Syrian regime. “Iran thinks it has them where it wants them now,” said the European source. “I’m not sure it has gauged the Turks correctly, though.”
A fighter sits on a balcony in Sinjar, Iraq after the town was retaken from Isis by Kurdish-led forces. Photograph: Cengiz Yar for the Guardian
Of all the points between Tehran and the Syrian coast, Aleppo has concentrated Iran’s energies more than anywhere else. Up to 6,000 militia members, mostly from Iraq, have congregated there ahead of a move to take the rebel-held east of the city, which could begin around the same time as the assault on Mosul.Those who have observed Suleimani up close as he inspects the frontlines in Syria and Iraq, or in meetings in Damascus and Baghdad, where he projects his immense power through studied calm, say he has invested everything in Syria – and in ensuring that Iran emerges from a brutal, expensive war with its ambitions enhanced. “If we lose Syria, we lose Tehran,” Suleimani told the late Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi in 2014. Chalabi told the Observer at the time that Suleimani had added: “We will turn all this chaos into an opportunity.”
Securing Aleppo would be an important leg in the corridor, which would run past two villages to the north that have historically been in Shia hands. From there, a senior Syrian official, and Iraqi officials in Baghdad, said it would run towards the outskirts of Syria’s fourth city, Homs, then move north through the Alawite heartland of Syria, which a year of Russian airpower has again made safe for Assad. Iran’s hard-won road ends at the port of Latakia, which has remained firmly in regime hands throughout the war.
Ali Khedery, who advised all US ambassadors to Iraq and four commanders of Centcom in 2003-11 said securing a Mediterranean link would be seen as a strategic triumph in Iran. “It signifies the consolidation of Iran’s control over Iraq and the Levant, which in turn confirms their hegemonic regional ambitions,” he said. “That should trouble every western leader and our regional allies because this will further embolden Iran to continue expanding, likely into the Gulf countries next, a goal they have explicitly and repeatedly articulated. Why should we expect them to stop if they’ve been at the casino, doubling their money over and over again, for a decade?”
Friday, October 7, 2016
The Times article lists some of Russia's national interests at stake in Syria:
Moscow considers Mr. Assad’s survival crucial to protecting its interests in Syria, which include combating jihadism, preserving intelligence and military assets, and asserting that Russia is a geopolitical player in the Middle East.
Russia, with Salafi Jihadists fighting in Dagestan and up the Volga River into the heart of Russia naturally wants to defeat Saudi Arabia's Salafi Jihadists in Syria. It also wants to protect its naval base in Syria, it's only direct outlet to the Mediterranean Sea. These are rational national interests. The article does not mention Iran's and Qatar's mutual and conflicting interests in a pipeline through Syria without which neither can deliver natural gas from the Pfs Natural Gas field, from which each nation could deliver huge amounts of gas to Europe. Russia's interest is to prevent Qatar from delivering Pars gas to Europe, undercutting the price of the oil it delivers to Europe, with disastrous effect on the Russian economy. Russia is less concerned with Iran's delivering gas to Europe, believing it can cut a deal with Iran to protect its price monopoly. Both Iran and Qatar have proposed gas lines through Syria. See here.
Russia has vital national interests in Syria. The United State's only national interest is protecting the Gulf Cooperation Council's oil monopoly from competition from Iran, an interest that has long outlasted its usefulness. Aleppo is full of heart-rending tragedy. Yemen is worse. The United States can do something about Yemen; doing something about Aleppo will require great diplomatic skill. Bombast won't cut it. The Times article, below, is rational. One hopes that our next president, whatever the campaign rhetoric, will recognize it. I believe Mrs. Clinton does. Friends fear she is more war-like.
The Opinion Pages | OP-ED
Don’t Intervene in Syria
By STEVEN SIMON and JONATHAN STEVENSON OCT. 6, 2016
Credit Anthony Russo
The cease-fire in Syria that the United States and Russia tortuously negotiated has, like the one before it, fallen apart.
The trouble began when an errant American airstrike killed some 60 Syrian government soldiers. Then, Russia resumed its disingenuous grandstanding and the Syrian government, with Russia’s support, went back to indiscriminately bombing rebel-held areas of Aleppo. On Monday, less than a month after the agreement went into effect, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States would break off talks with Russia on trying to revive it.
This failure, accompanied by images of suffering in Aleppo, has inspired renewed calls for a tougher American policy in Syria from liberal hawks and traditional conservatives alike. At the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday, both the Democrat, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, and the Republican, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, advocated more aggressive American action.
But the truth is that it is too late for the United States to wade deeper into the Syrian conflict without risking a major war, or, at best, looking feckless by failing to fully commit to confronting Russia and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and then backing down. The goal now should be reducing harm, saving lives and keeping prospects for a political deal alive. Cease-fire talks between the United States and Russia, tormented though they may be, remain the best way to achieve this.
Although Russia has denied it, it is clear that Moscow considers Mr. Assad’s survival crucial to protecting its interests in Syria, which include combating jihadism, preserving intelligence and military assets, and asserting that Russia is a geopolitical player in the Middle East. Russia has unflinchingly protected the Assad government both militarily and at the United Nations Security Council.
Indeed, Mr. Assad seems to enjoy practically unlimited leverage over Russia. Despite narrowly escaping American punishment for using chemical weapons by surrendering his stockpile of deadly nerve gas and other poisons in 2013, Mr. Assad has felt free to continue using toxic commercial chlorine gas. Even though Russia moved toward political compromise when it provisionally withdrew from Syria in March, Mr. Assad was not inclined to give peace talks a serious chance. In both cases, Russia fell back in line with Mr. Assad’s defiant brutality.
There are probably limits to Moscow’s deference to Mr. Assad’s blood lust, but it is unclear what they are. This is what makes an American escalation in Syria so dangerous.
American supporters of intervention, including the vice-presidential candidates, often say that the United States should create a no-fly zone in Syria to protect civilians from Mr. Assad and Russia’s bombs. But imagine how this might work: An American warplane enforcing a no-fly zone would risk fire from a Russian-made antiaircraft battery or fighter. (Just this week Russia shipped new antiaircraft systems to Syria.)
This risk clearly worries advocates for the use of force within the Obama administration. They are said to favor increased air support for the Syrian rebels that would avoid direct confrontation with the Russians. But small-scale, targeted bombing is unlikely to change Syrian behavior, so to be effective the strikes would have to escalate. (Alternatively, ineffective strikes could be ended, but this would make the United States look incompetent.) This would ultimately lead to a violent response, which would compel the United States to retaliate against Russian and Syrian government ground targets.
As conflict spiraled and casualties increased, so would international pressure for another costly, protracted and thankless American-led ground intervention to enforce peace, which domestic opinion in the United States would not support. While Russia’s real appetite for a political solution in the Syria conflict is unclear, it is wiser to test unknown political limits than unknown military ones.
Some of those advocating more intervention in Syria believe that as the so-called indispensable power, the United States has an ethical responsibility to reduce the suffering caused by Syrian and Russian bombing of civilians. Another camp of interventionists criticizes what it sees as President Obama’s weakness, heartlessness and strategic myopia, and wants the United States to stand up to Russia and assert its intention to remain a major geopolitical player in the region.
The liberal interventionists seem to have forgotten that it is no longer the 1990s. Disastrous forays in Iraq and Libya have undermined any American willingness to put values before interests. Meanwhile, the second group of interventionists seem to have forgotten that Syria has been Moscow’s client since early in the Cold War — a situation Washington was willing to live with when the geostrategic stakes were much higher.
The United States does, in fact, have a clear Syria policy: Roll back the Islamic State by way of the air campaign and American-supported Syrian rebel forces, coordinating with Russia to the extent possible; provide extensive humanitarian support; and continue to press for a sustainable cease-fire and a negotiated political transition involving Mr. Assad’s eventual departure. It may be frustrating, but against the alternatives, it is the only sensible course of action.
Certainly, the Syrian government and Russia have manipulated the cease-fires, using them as cover for continuing offensives. Nonetheless, fragile though they have been, these deals ratchet down the overall level of violence and save lives.
The deal struck by Mr. Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, for the United States and Russia to coordinate counter-jihadist operations and restrain opposition and government military activity was intended to produce a durable cease-fire, promote more effective humanitarian operations and re-energize political talks. Although it has fallen apart, the next step, unsatisfying as it may be, is to try again.
Steven Simon, a professor at Amherst College, was the National Security Council’s senior director for the Middle East and North Africa from 2011 through 2012. Jonathan Stevenson, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a fellow at Cullman Center, was the council’s director for political-military affairs for the Middle East and North Africa from 2011 to 2013
(Reuters) -- Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States of supplying more weapons to Kurdish fighters in northern Syria this week, saying Washington had delivered two plane loads of arms to what Ankara considers a terrorist group.
Erdogan's comments are likely to add to the tension between Turkey and the United States over Syria, where Washington backs the Kurdish YPG forces against Islamic State.
Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State but views the Syrian Kurdish YPG and its PYD political wing as an extension of Kurdish militants who have waged a three-decade insurgency on its own soil.
"If you think you can finish off Daesh with the YPG and PYD, you cannot, because they are terrorist groups too," Erdogan said in comments in New York on Thursday that were broadcast on Turkish television. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
"Three days ago America dropped two plane loads of weapons in enthusiasm for these terror groups," he said, adding he had raised the issue on Wednesday with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden who he said had no knowledge of this.
The United States, which sees the YPG as a major strategic partner in the fight against Islamic State in Syria, air-dropped weapons to the group in the largely Kurdish town of Kobani in 2014. Erdogan said that half of those arms were seized by Islamic State fighters.
Kobani was besieged by Islamic State for four months in late 2014 and is about 35 km (20 miles) east of the Syrian border town of Jarablus, which Turkish-backed rebels seized a month ago in an operation dubbed "Euphrates Shield".
That operation is designed to clear Islamic State fighters from Turkey's southern border area but it has also brought Turkish and Syrian rebel forces into conflict with the YPG.
FOCUS ON ASSAD
Much of Turkey's focus during the six-year Syria civil war has been on the need to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rather than fighting Islamic State. Its recent push into northern Syria came after steady advances by the YPG.
Erdogan, who was on a visit to the United States this week, told broadcaster MSNBC that the blame for a deadly attack on a United Nations convoy rested squarely with Damascus.
"The killer responsible for that attack is Assad's regime itself," he said, through a translator in an interview aired on Friday.
He called again for the creation of a "safe zone" in northern Syria, an idea that has failed to gain traction with Western allies, who say it would require a significant ground force and planes to patrol.
The top U.S. general on Thursday said the military was considering arming the Syrian Kurdish fighters, and acknowledged the difficulty of balancing such a move with the relationship with Ankara.
"We are in deliberation about (what) exactly to do with the Syrian Democratic Forces right now," General Joseph Dunford told a Senate hearing, referring to a U.S.-backed coalition that includes the YPG.
When asked whether he agreed that arming the Syrian Kurds fighters presented a military opportunity for the United States to be more effective in Syria, Dunford said: "I would agree with that. If we would reinforce the Syrian Democratic Forces' current capabilities that will increase the prospects of our success in Raqqa."
Raqqa is Islamic State's stronghold in Syria.
Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Tuvan Gumrucku in Ankara; Editing by Ralph Boulton.
Accord: Times of Oman
__________ Here is Raqqa, Syria
Koerden veroveren basis Islamitische Staat in noordelijk Syrië - NRC
The Battle for Raqqa in Syria and the coming battle for Mosel in Iraq are critical: together they would amount to a defeat of the Islamic State.
From Turkey and Iraq's standpoint those victories would be major defeats in their campaigns against Kurds.
Turkey and Iraq have foolishly decided that the Kurds are their enemies.
The Kurds, who were promised an independent Kurdistan by the French, were assigned to Syria, Turkey, and Iraq, where they were treated abominably. They are now poised to obtain partial freedom. The jubilation is evident in the enthusiasm with which they establish a free, multi-ethnic, non-sectarian, feminist state where no such state has ever existed in all of recorded history.
All freedom-loving peoples of the world should support them.
__________
Oman is ruled by a Greek philosopher-king, prescribed in Plato's Republic, as the ideal form of government. Though a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Oman opposed the Saudi-United Arab Emirates' Yemen genocide on its helpless people, the only member of the council to refrai; and has done its best to end the genocide and bring peace to Syria.
Oman reminds me of Honolulu, if we were ruled by a philosopher-king, and if we had oil instead of tourists.
__________
Asyrans have lived in central Near East since the 25 Century BCE. They have no empire now, and their great buildings and statues have been largely destroyed. Per Wikipedia:
Islamic Terrorism (2003–present)
An Assyrian wedding in Mechelen, Belgium.
In recent years, particularly since 2014, the Assyrians in northern Iraq and north east Syria have become the target of unprovoked Islamic terrorism. As a result, Assyrians have taken up arms, alongside other groups (such as the Kurds, Turcomans and Armenians) in response to unprovoked attacks by Al Qaeda, ISIL, Nusra Front, and other Wahhabi terrorist Islamic fundamentalist groups. In 2014 Islamic terrorists of ISIS attacked Assyrian towns and villages in the Assyrian homelands of northern Iraq and north east Syria. Assyrians forced from their homes in cities such as Mosul have had their houses and possessions stolen, and given over to ISIS terrorists or Sunni Arabs.[67]
In addition, the Assyrians have suffered seeing their ancient indigenous heritage desecrated, in the form of Bronze Age and Iron Age monuments and archaeological sites, as well as numerous Assyrian churches and monasteries,[67] being systematically vandalised and destroyed by ISIS. These include the ruins of Nineveh, Kalhu (Nimrud, Assur, Dur-Sharrukin and Hatra).[68][69]
Assyrians in both northern Iraq, north east Syria and also central and southern Iraq[70][71][72] have responded by forming armed Assyrian militias to defend their territories,[73] and despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned have had success in driving ISIS from Assyrian towns and villages, and defending others from attack.[74][75] Armed Assyrian militias have also joined forces with other peoples persecuted by ISIS and Sunni Muslim extremists, including; the Kurds, Turcoman, Yezidis, Syriac-Aramean Christians, Shabaks, Armenian Christians, Kawilya, Mandeans, Circassians and Shia Muslim Arabs and Iranians.
White Phosphorus is the most pernicious of all weapons of war.
It is placate time for the United States to withhold its support for the Saudi genocide in Yemen; its standing in the international community is seriously damaged by its continued complicity in genocide.
The Obama administration is to be commended for withholding cluster bombs -- a minor victory for sanity; and the Congress is to be commanded for deciding to delay a $1 billion arms deal to Saudi Arabia. Hawaii's Senator Brian Schatz was one of the authors of the delay.
resolution.
An 81mm white phosphorus mortar round bursts on impact during a live-fire exercise involving elements of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. (Spc. Barbara Ospina/1st Brigade Combat Team Public Affairs)
Saudi Arabia appears to be using U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions in its war in Yemen, based on images and videos posted to social media, raising concerns among human rights groups that the highly incendiary material could be used against civilians.
Under U.S. regulations, white phosphorus sold to other countries is to be used only for signaling to other troops and creating smoke screens. When the munition explodes, it releases white phosphorus that automatically ignites in the air and creates a thick white smoke. When used against soldiers or civilians, it can maim and kill by burning to the bone.
It is unclear exactly how the Saudis are using the munitions, but the government has already received widespread condemnation for its indiscriminate bombing in civilian areas since its campaign against rebel forces in Yemen began in 2015.
U.S. officials confirmed that the American government has supplied the Saudis white phosphorus in the past but declined to say how much had been transferred or when. After reviewing a social media image taken from the battlefield that showed a white phosphorus mortar shell, a U.S. official said it appeared to be American in origin but could not trace it to a particular sale because some of the markings were obscured.
“The United States expects any recipient of U.S. military assistance to use those items in accordance with international law and under the terms and conditions of any U.S. transfer or sale,” said a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss politically sensitive issues.
The official said the department was looking into reports of Saudi forces’ improperly using U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions. “If a country is determined to have used U.S.-provided weapons for unauthorized purposes, the U.S. will take appropriate corrective action,” the official said.
The United States has grown increasingly wary of its material support to the Saudi military. In May, the Obama administration halted the sale of roughly 400 cluster bombs to the Saudis after human rights organizations documented the weapons’ use in civilian areas. This week, lawmakers on Capitol Hill moved to delay a $1 billion arms deal that would replace some of Saudi Arabia’s U.S.-supplied tanks that have been damaged in the conflict
Kurds [who are the most effective fighting force opposing the Islamic State and who have been excluded from the Geneva please talks] should be included in the intra-Syrian peace talks in Geneva, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said on Friday.
• • •
“Some members [of the ISSG] exert strong pressure, because they consider the PYD to be terrorists’ supporters or an unnecessary element, as Kurdish representatives from other political groups [Kurdish National Council] are taking part in the Geneva talks,” he said.
• • •
Although Russian-Turkish relations have drastically improved after the failed military coup on July 15, Russia did not change its stance towards the Syrian Kurdish forces that have been the most effective element against ISIS.
According to Akhmetov, there are several reasons Russia is still supporting the Kurds despite of Moscow’s new relations with Turkey.
“First to not lose their support completely, and secondly to not provoke them to make any reckless steps like announcing secession from Syria,” he said.
I am pleased to announce that Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz has joined Senators Rand Paul, Chris Murphy, Al Franken, and Mike Lee to block the $1.15 billion arms to Saudi Arabia.
I have a call in to Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono's office to see if she has also co-sponsored the resolution.
The article below reports on significant House support for blocking the sale.
The article is authored by Rachel Stohl with theStimson Center,, previously unknown to me. The Center has an impressive board of directors, including Hillary Clinton, soon to the President of the United States.
The analysis of reasons for and against the sale to Saudi Arabia , below, is well-reasoned.
Please call your senators to see if they have joined the bipartisan group against the sale. A simple phone call will give you that information. If you send what you find out, to me, I will publish it.
Block U.S. Arms Sales to Stop Indiscriminate Bombing in Yemen
ByRACHEL STOHL and SHANNON DICKon September 16, 2016 at 4:01 AM
F-15s among weapons sold to Saudi Arabia
Last week, a bipartisan quarter of senators — Rand Paul, Chris Murphy, Al Franken, and Mike Lee — introduced a joint resolution to block the $1.15 billion sale of Abrams tanks and other major defense articles to Saudi Arabia in light of concerns about the kingdom’s actions in Yemen.
In the House, more than 60 representatives signed a letter by Rep. Ted Lieu to President Obama requesting a delay in U.S. arms sales to Riyadh. With opposition to arms sales to Saudi Arabia growing, the administration should use its leverage to encourage the Saudi government to cease its indiscriminate bombing campaign and delay future U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia until such change occurs.
The 18-month Saudi-led campaign in Yemen is believed to have resulted in over 3,800 civilian deaths and more than 6,700 injuries. US-manufactured weapons are being used to carry out the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen, and strikes have hit civilian targets, destroying schools, markets, hospitals, and factories.
The United States is Saudi Arabia’s largest weapons supplier and it has provided logistical and intelligence support to the kingdom, along with billions of dollars in heavy conventional weapons. The Obama administration has prioritized Saudi Arabia’s special relationship with the United States and has requested a nominal $10,000 per year for International Military Education and Training (IMET) assistance so that Saudi Arabia can remain eligible for discounts on Foreign Military Sales. Since 2009 alone, the administration has authorized over $115 billion in sales of major conventional weapons to the Kingdom –including munitions, tanks, and fighter jets.
While proponents of continued sales to Saudi Arabia provide numerous justifications, many of those do not hold up. Indeed, the oft-heard refrain, “if we don’t sell, someone else will” is used repeatedly – but just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Complicity in contributing to human rights abuses and a massive humanitarian crisis is not in the U.S. interest, even if the U.S. could lose sales (itself a specious argument). If the Chinese or Russians want to sell weapons that they know will be used to kill civilians, let them. The United States holds an estimable position and a certain moral authority when it comes to the global arms trade – in both its robust (and restrictive) arms transfer control system and its attentiveness to potential risks – and should not negate its core principles when confronted with potential competition.
Congress rarely offers such a public critique of potential U.S. arms transfers, particularly to a close ally. The last time Congress successfully stopped an arms sale to Saudi Arabia was in the early 1990s, when fallout from the Gulf War led lawmakers to oppose a $20 billion arms package to the kingdom (the sale was eventually broken into smaller pieces; the transfer of some systems was postponed indefinitely).
The administration already has the tools it needs to encourage the Saudis to act. The use of U.S. weapons in Yemen runs counter to the laws and regulations that underpin U.S. arms transfers – such as the Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act, Presidential Policy Directive 27, and its obligations as a signatory to the Arms Trade Treaty.
Congressional opposition shines a bright light on Riyadh’s conduct and increases pressure on the Obama administration not to accept “business-as-usual” for U.S. arms sales. The public display of disapproval takes important steps toward condemning and shaming the Saudi government’s behavior and encouraging a change to the air campaign.
Moreover, if given the choice, governments want to purchase U.S. weapons and systems, as they are better and more effective systems. It’s also possible that munitions manufactured by other countries may not work in U.S. systems – as they were not designed for interoperability. Saudi forces have historically relied upon U.S. systems and are not trained on systems from other countries.
Concerns that delayed U.S. weapons may impede Saudi Arabia’s ability to defend itself also fall short. The United States has sold billions of dollars in weapons to the Kingdom and has a long record of working with the Saudis to ensure security for the Kingdom and the region. That friendship and cooperation should not justify continued U.S. complicity in prosecuting a war that is harming civilians indiscriminately.
As President Obama and his advisors consider their legacy, it is time to stand up to those that violate human rights with impunity. Without a concerted and public effort to delay future sales, the United States effectively legitimizes the Saudi government’s actions. Ultimately, the administration will need to make a political decision to utilize its leverage to influence Saudi behavior and better adhere to its own values and principles.
Rachel Stohl is director and Shannon Dick is research associate of the Conventional Defense program at the Stimson Center.
