Trump betrayed U.S. moral leadership. So Congress had to act.
By Senator Robert Menendez
“The longer this cruel war lasts in Yemen, the more permanent the damage will be … The crown prince must bring an end to the violence and restore the dignity of the birthplace of Islam.”
It was Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s penchant for truth-telling such as this that earned him the ire of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A year ago, at the behest of the Saudi royal family, he was murdered and gruesomely dismembered inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
“The longer this cruel war lasts in Yemen, the more permanent the damage will be … The crown prince must bring an end to the violence and restore the dignity of the birthplace of Islam.”
It was Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s penchant for truth-telling such as this that earned him the ire of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A year ago, at the behest of the Saudi royal family, he was murdered and gruesomely dismembered inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
The Saudis should have known that murdering a U.S. resident and journalist would trigger a fundamental reexamination of the way Americans think about the House of Saud. Regrettably, we should have known President Trump would find a way to use this tragedy to further forfeit our nation’s status as a champion of values such as human rights and press freedom.
For decades, our partnership with Riyadh was based on mutual strategic interests. But it had been strained by the kingdom’s arcane restrictions on women, abysmal human rights record and insistence on restricting basic freedoms. More recently, Saudi Arabia led a vicious intervention against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, effectively kidnapped the Lebanese prime minister and created a sustained rift in a critical American regional security bloc.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/30/trump-betrayed-us-moral-leadership-with-saudi-arabia-so-congress-had-act/?wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1