The U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Yemen: A short history and future

HIMAJA‌ ‌REDDY:‌‌ In his administration’s first foreign policy speech, President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. would no longer support Saudi Arabia’s offensive military operations in Saudi Arabia asserting, “The war has to end.” His words at the State Department were accompanied by a promise to halt all relevant arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the appointment of a senior diplomat to Yemen to pursue a diplomatic solution to the current war. 

His actions ring true to his campaign promises of ending the U.S. support of the Yemen war, promises that initially fell on weary voters who remembered Biden’s own role as the Vice President in an administration that remained complicit in the crimes of the Saudis in Yemen and elsewhere. Not only will Biden diverge from his previous administration but rightfully reverse its policies, policies that have left Yemen as “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.”

The Obama administration oversaw the continuation and expansion of the strong geopolitical and economic relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. The president who notably stated, “Let’s fight to make sure that our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people… that the arm merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe” was the same individual who, years later, oversaw a record-breaking $115 billion in U.S. arms and military support offers to the Saudi Kingdom. These arms deals, combined with the U.S.’s political support on the floor of the UN, allowed Saudi Arabia to run unchecked in its destruction of Yemen with the assistance of American bombs, fuel, training, and intelligence. 

After a funeral hall bombing in 2016 that killed dozens of mourning civilians, President Obama ceased certain guided munition technology transactions with the Kingdom under concerns for the Saudi’s recklessness in failing to avoid civilian targets. However, President Trump’s State Department reinstated these sales just months later and allowed for the U.S.-Saudi relationship to only prosper. President Trump essentially gave the green light to the various activities of the Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman despite American intelligence confirming the prince’s role in the tragic murder of American Journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Crown Prince’s jailing of women’s rights activists, and his role in rapidly increasing civilian death count in Yemen. Despite President Trump’s initial hesitation over the U.S.-Saudi relationship that existed before taking office, his time as Commander in Chief saw the sustenance and expansion of a twisted dynamic between the two countries. 

The U.S.’s alliance with the kingdom, a relationship centered around oil and firepower, has endured because U.S. leaders have been apprehensive about what a deterioration of this alliance would imply for the international order, particularly as it relates to American economic and security interests. Not only is Saudi Arabia a key player in the oil market— it can drastically alter energy prices by flooding the market with its crude oil reserves— but also a vital ally of the U.S. in balancing against Iran and its proxies in the Middle East and North Africa. A rift in this relationship could deeply harm America’s position in the Middle East in its limited war against Iran. 

Despite these fears, Biden’s tougher stance on Saudi Arabia,  from banning selective arms sales to the country to repealing the “terrorist” designation on the Yemeni Houthi rebels, has already generated positive material effects. Just recently, Saudi Arabia ended its three-year-long blockade of Qatar, a blockade which hampered U.S. efforts to isolate Iran— a policy change that will be instrumental in Biden’s agenda to bring Iran back into a nuclear agreement. U.S. and Saudi officials attributed this policy reversal to the start of Biden’s administration and his anticipated pressure on the Saudis in regards to human rights. Moreover, in the days leading up to the inauguration, Saudi Arabia released two U.S. citizens arrested for dissent on bail and canceled the remaining prison term of a third citizen. In addition, the Crown Prince released the well-known political prisoner Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent women’s rights activist who was kidnapped, jailed, and tortured. Arguably, this is another nod from the Crown Prince to curry the favor of a president who has promised to take a firmer stance against the Kingdom's human rights abuses, including the release of a CIA report confirming Muhammad Bin Salman’s role in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. The actions of the Saudis only reaffirm Biden’s decision to treat the Kingdom with a harsher hand. 

In addition to these tangible results, the U.S.’s conscience can now take a (small and brief) breath of relief: it is no longer actively funding a genocide. At a basic level, the U.S.-Saudi relationship will always endure, but Biden’s policy adjustments signal that the new administration’s American foreign policy will not be driven by the sole stakeholders of profits and nationalism, but rather be reinvigorated with moral principle. At the very least, Biden’s policies shift the American treatment of the Kingdom from one of blind complicity to one of frigidity and caution, one where human rights and justice are at the very least considered.

Nevertheless, Biden’s current policies will not revive 100,000 dead Yemenis, nourish the 22 million in dire need of basic assistance, or heal the divides of a country torn by external powers— tragedies that he had an indirect hand in enabling as Vice President. America truly has an incredible debt to pay to the people of Yemen (and elsewhere), and these political transformations can only be the start towards a long and arduous road towards peace.

Himaja Reddy is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service and a prospective Global Business major. She is from Columbus, Ohio and is interested in the Middle East and South Asia.