Pompeo: Helping Saudis Attack Yemen Is In America’s Best Interests

With the Senate planning this week to “process” President Trump’s veto of the War Powers Act challenge to the Yemen War, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took the reins to try to defend US involvement in Yemen as in America’s best interest.

Pompeo’s argument centered on the idea that the US was obliged to help Saudi Arabia defend itself from retaliatory fights, now that the Saudis had launched a war and provoked that retaliation.

On top of that poor argument for an obligation, Pompeo relied on what the administration seems to believe is the most compelling argument, even if it is wholly based on a lie. He argued that the whole war was Iran’s fault, and not intervening would make Iran happy.

This was the argument Saudi Arabia successfully used to sucker the US into this war, though to be fair that didn’t take much effort. The Iran never had more than tentative links to the Shi’ite Houthi movement, and that they’re not even the same type of Shi’ites, was lost on the administration, and Pompeo seems to hope it will also be lost on the Senate.

Pompeo’s argument is effectively that the US has blundered so deeply into a foolish war they have to keep plugging away, and to the extent we can fool ourselves into thinking we’re somehow sticking it to Iran we might feel a little better about all the harm we’re doing to Yemen.