Alwaght- American Senator Bernie Sanders reportedly is moving toward a vote “hopefully next week” on a war powers resolution aimed at blocking US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
Backers of a war powers resolution say that a strong vote in the Senate in the lame duck will send a signal to Saudi regime that it does not have a free hand to restart hostilities, despite the Biden administration’s more placating posture amid its hunt for lower oil prices.
A war powers resolution is “privileged” in the Senate, which means that the sponsor of it can bring it to the floor for a vote without the need for approval by the chamber’s leadership once a certain amount of time has elapsed. At that point, the resolution has “ripened,” and the one sponsored by Sanders is now ripe.
Asked whether Sanders expected to have the votes to pass the resolution, the Vermont senator told The Intercept, “I think we do, yes.”
Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistical support from the United States and other Western countries.
The objective was to reinstall Yemen's former Riyadh- and Washington-friendly regime and crush Ansarullah. The popular resistance movement has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.
The Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of the objectives, while killing hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and turning the entire Yemen into the site of, what the UN calls, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
