ANALYSIS - US Profits Off Saudi Arms Sales At Expense Of Long-Term Stability

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd September, 2018) The United States and its allies have chosen to prioritize profits over civilian lives by continuing to arm the Saudi-led coalition to execute its air campaign in Yemen, analysts told Sputnik.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decided to continue military aid in support of the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen because an embargo would jeopardize $2 billion in US arms sales. In addition, Germany's economic ministry recently approved arms sales to Saudi Arabia despite vows by lawmakers to end such deliveries.

Many fear, however, that the US and German governments could potentially end up sacrificing a lot in the long run by approving these weapons deals.

"It [the United States] is raking in short-term profits yet do not understand that it's at the expense of long-term instability," historian and analyst Dan Lazare told Sputnik. "Or maybe they understand but just do not care."

Saudi Arabia and the other oil monarchies were deeply integrated into the Western economies, Lazare acknowledged.

"Therefore countries like the United States and Germany can't help but do business with them no matter how erratic their behavior grows," he said.

Lazare emphasized that Pompeo and other US policymakers were also actively pressuring Riyadh to adopt more aggressive policies towards Iran and other countries.

The arms sales policies however, were morally eroding the politics and reputations of both Germany and the United States and they were making the Saudi Royal family far less secure, Lazare pointed out.

"The result is western imperialism at its most nihilistic," Lazare suggested. "With growing signs of dissent within the ruling family, the Saudi regime seems to be increasingly unstable."

On Friday, Human Rights Watch in a press release said the Saudi-led coalition is pressuring the UN Human Rights Council to suppress a scathing report on possible war crimes committed by its pilots in an air campaign backing Yemen's government.

The report concluded that Saudi-led coalition airstrikes were responsible for most of more than 16,000 civilians killed or injured in Yemen over the past three years.

Institute for Gulf Affairs Director Professor Ali al-Ahmed told Sputnik that the United States and its allies had never applied any moral criteria or constraints on their policies governing international arms sales.

"The West [will] never withhold arms sales for moral reasons. When such withholding occurs it is due to political, legalistic or economic considerations that are aimed at maximizing profits or killing of more brown people," al-Ahmed said.

This racial bigotry towards the populations of so much of the world was deeply engrained in the main European nations as well as in the United States, al-Ahmed observed.

"The United States, Germany, Spain and... of course, the English-dominated United Kingdom are driven by their cultural views immersed in anti-brown bigotry," he said.

The arm sales would result in the deaths of many more innocent civilians, especially children in Yemen and other countries throughout the world to no good purpose, al-Ahmed added.

"More kids will die and more billions will be wasted while these Western leaders celebrate with glee," he concluded.

US Senator Bernie Sanders in a statement on Thursday called on Congress to conduct a probe into whether Pompeo violated the law by falsely certifying that Saudi Arabia and its allies had taken steps to reduce casualties in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has been launching airstrikes on Houthi rebels at the request of the internationally-recognized Yemeni government since March 2015.