Evaluating Biden’s Yemen policy: Bait and switch
By Sara Flounders posted on February 8, 2021
Feb. 7 — President Joe Biden seemed to announce an end to Washington’s complete support for Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen last week, reversing Trump’s and even the Obama/Biden administration’s public policy. He called the war a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.”
In his first presidential foreign policy speech on Feb. 4, Biden said, “We are ending all [U.S.] support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” (whitehouse.gov) But he quickly added that Washington will continue to help Saudi Arabia to “defend its sovereignty and territory,” including selling the Saudis massive new high-tech weapons, for “defensive” purposes.