Qatar, Bahrain duck congressional backlash against Gulf arms sales
As scrutiny grows over arms transfers to Washington’s Gulf allies, the Senate narrowly voted to allow weapons sales to Qatar and Bahrain.
Qatar and Bahrain today narrowly avoided the growing congressional backlash against US arms sales to the Gulf Arab states.
The Senate voted 57-42 against moving forward on a resolution blocking a $3 billion sale of 24 Apache attack helicopters to Qatar and 56-43 against a separate bid to stop a $750 million sale of air-to-air missiles for Bahrain.
Incensed by the Donald Trump administration’s attempt to circumvent a congressional hold on arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Democrats joined Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in his bid to force debate on the Qatar and Bahrain sales. Paul argued that the sales would exacerbate a Middle East arms race, citing Doha’s support for Islamist groups in Syria and Manama’s participation in the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
“The Middle East is a hot cauldron continuing and continually threatening to boil over,” Paul said on the Senate floor ahead of the votes. “I think it’s a mistake to funnel arms into these century-old conflicts. There is no great certainty that the arms we send to the Middle East aren’t one day used against our own soldiers.”
