Neoconservatsimi, lobi i saudve dhe dhurimi i miljonave dhe lufta ne yemen

[HFTengineer]

HE CENTER FOR American Progress hosted a sort of preview of Hillary Clinton’s Middle East policy on Tuesday, with a Clinton adviser and a Gulf state diplomat agreeing that the next president should double down on support for the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, while ramping up action against Iran.

It is a signal that a future Clinton administration would overwhelmingly favor the Gulf states in their ongoing, Middle East-wide power struggle with Iran, implicitly rebuking President Obama, who has come under fire from Gulf states for mild criticism of their foreign policy and his nuclear deal with Iran.

The founder of the Center for American Progress, John Podesta, is the campaign chair for Clinton’s presidential bid; many of the candidate’s closest advisors are alumni of CAP and it is widely viewed as a launching pad for policy staff for Democratic presidents. The center is currently helmed by Clinton transition co-chair Neera Tanden.

Panelists at the event, titled “Strengthening U.S. Partnerships in the Middle East,” argued for what is essentially a supercharged anti-Iran, pro-Saudi posture, with little disagreement from CAP moderator Brian Katulis.

Former acting CIA Director and Clinton foreign policy advisor Mike Morell called for escalation of sanctions “that bite” on Iran in response to their “malign behavior in the region.” And in what would be a dramatic escalation of U.S. power in the region, he called for intercepting Iranian vessels traveling to Yemen to supply weapons to Houthi rebels.

“I know there’s issues of international law here,” Morell said. “Ships leave Iran on a regular basis carrying arms to the Houthis in Yemen. … I would have no problem, from a policy perspective, of having U.S. Navy board those ships and if there’s weapons on them for the Houthis, turn those ships around and send those ships back to Iran. I think that’s the kind of action, tough action that would get the attention of the Iranians and will get the attention of our friends in the region to say the Americans are now serious about helping us deal with this problem.”

The United States objected to the Houthi capture of Yemen’s governing institutions in 2014, and considers the leader they ousted, Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to be the legitimate leader of the country. And when Gulf countries started bombing Yemen in the Spring of 2015 in defense of Hadi’s exiled government, the National Security Council said it “strongly condemns ongoing military actions taken by the Houthis against the elected government of Yemen.”

But there is no state of war between the U.S. and the Houthis and the State Department does not consider the group to be terrorists.

Furthermore, the Iranian relationship to the Houthis is tenuous and has grown primarily due to the Saudi-led intervention. And the Houthis have also been known to be fierce opponents of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which our government does designate as a terrorist group and a threat to the United States.

United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef al-Otaiba began his remarks by praising a CAP report released last week that advocates for continued cooperation with Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE while urging consideration of use of force against Syria’s Iran-allied government.

“Thank you for the report on the Middle East, which I happen to completely agree with,” al-Otaiba said.

For al-Otaiba, the main problem with current U.S. policy is that it isn’t friendly enough to the Gulf’s Sunni autocracies. “At the risk of trying to solve every policy first, I think for the next administration what I’d like to see is to rebuild those relationships, to rebuild the trust.”

Part of that distrust, in the ambassador’s view, was built by Obama’s opposition to Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak during the Arab Spring and his strategic silence during the Green Revolution in Iran. “If I was a Martian watching the events of the Middle East over the last few years,” he joked, “and I saw the U.S. reaction to the events in Iran and then shortly after I watched the U.S. reaction to the events in Egypt, I would be a very confused Martian. I would think it was the other way around. I would think Iran is the U.S. ally, but Egypt was the adversary.”

But U.S. policy towards the military regime in Egypt has hardly been uncharitable, and the government of Iran would be surprised to hear any suggestion that the U.S. is siding with it. In reality, the U.S. gave $6.5 billion in military aid to Egypt between 2011 and 2015 and has maintained a stringent set of economic sanctions targeting Iran.

Al-Otaiba named a group of “core allies” — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, and Jordan — that he’d like to see the U.S. reaffirm its commitment to. “I think the first order for the new administration is try to get that band back together, operating on the same wavelength.”

That wavelength is an increasingly controversial one, however, as militant movements inspired by Saudi-aligned ideology have spread throughout the region. The hacked Clinton campaign emails released by Wikileaks, for example, show that Hillary Clinton privately is troubled by Gulf state foreign policy. In a 2014 email to Podesta, she wrote of a need “to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”

But the others panelists did not disagree with the UAE ambassador. Morell, in particular, chose to frame Gulf behavior in the region as simply a defense against an imperial Iran.

Morell said tension in the region is “often referred to as the struggle between Iran and the Sunni Gulf states, struggle for influence in the region. You often hear that. It is the wrong way to think about it,” he said. “It is a desire on behalf of the Iranians to be the hegemonic power in the region, their efforts to achieve that, and it is the Sunni Gulf states pushing back against that. That is what’s happening.”

But there is in fact an ongoing struggle for influence between Iran and the Gulf states, as reflected in the proxy struggles around the region. Most notably, the region’s most violent conflict is taking place in Syria, where an Iran-backed government is doing battle with rebels that Gulf states have flooded with arms and other resources.

Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Winnefeld, Jr., another panelist, concurred with Morell. He essentially advised that the United States adopt the Saudi view of Yemen and Iran.

“Iran understands the language of power. They also understand the language of weakness,” he said.

He then turned to the issue of international law and Morell’s suggestion. “A very very strict interpretation of international law would say you can’t interdict an Iranian ship at the high seas,” he noted. But he insisted that the United States could interdict their ships if it was a matter of self defense. “My opinion and I think Michael would agree with me is that we could probably be a little bit more liberal in our interpretation of what collective self defense means when Iran is shipping arms to the Houthis to operate in Yemen which threatens the whole region.”

Al-Otaiba took the opportunity to defend his own country’s support for the Saudi intervention in Yemen, pointing to what he claimed was growing Iranian influence through the Houthis. “We were not going to allow for this to happen on the border of a country that produced 10 million barrels [of oil] a day, and is home to Mecca and Medina,” he said.

No one at the event offered criticism of al-Otaiba’s defense of the war or the more than $20 billion of U.S. arms sales to the Saudi Arabia over the past 18 months. The thousands of Yemenis who have been killed by the Gulf coalition’s military intervention went unmentioned. The Gulf states’ role in fostering extremism in Syria and elsewhere was also not extensively discussed. And the wisdom of adopting a more hostile posture towards Iran was never questioned.

Katulis did not respond to a request for comment.

[HFTengineer]

f I told you that Democratic Party lobbyist Tony Podesta, whose brother John Podesta chairs Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, is a registered foreign agent on the Saudi government’s payroll, you’d probably think I was a Trump-thumping, conspiratorial nutcase. But it’s true.

The lobby firm created by both Tony and John Podesta in 1988 receives $140,000 a month from the Saudi government, a government that beheads nonviolent dissidents, uses torture to extract forced confessions, doesn’t allow women to drive, and bombs schools, hospitals and residential neighborhoods in neighboring Yemen.

"If Hillary Clinton wants to be a meaningful symbol for human rights and women’s empowerment, her campaign must live up to the values she claims to represent."
The Podesta Group’s March 2016 filing, required under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, shows that Tony Podesta himself oversees the Saudi account. At the same time, Tony Podesta is also a top campaign contributor and bundler for Hillary Clinton. So while one brother runs the campaign, the other brother funds it with earnings that come, in part, from the Saudis.

John and Tony Podesta have been heavyweights in DC insider politics for decades. John Podesta served as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, founded the influential DC think tank Center for American Progress (which regularly touts Saudi “reforms”), and was counselor to President Obama. Tony Podesta was dubbed by The New York Times as “one of Washington’s biggest players” whose clients “are going to get a blueprint for how to succeed in official Washington.”

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The brothers seem to have no problem mixing their roles into the same pot. Tony Podesta held a Clinton campaign fundraiser at his home featuring gourmet Italian food cooked by himself and his brother, the campaign chairman. The fundraiser, by the way, came just days after Tony Podesta filed his Saudi contract with the Justice Department, a contract that included an initial “project fee” payment of $200,000.

The Saudis hired the Podesta Group in 2015 because it was getting hammered in the press over civilian casualties from its airstrikes in Yemen and its crackdown on political dissidents at home, including sentencing blogger Raif Badawi to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for “insulting Islam.” Since then, Tony Podesta’s fingerprints have been all over Saudi Arabia’s advocacy efforts in Washington DC. When Saudi Arabia executed the prominent nonviolent Shia dissident Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, causing protests throughout the Shia world and inflaming sectarian divisions, The New York Times noted that the Podesta Group provided the newspaper with a Saudi commentator who defended the execution.

The Podesta-Clinton-Saudi connection should be seen in light of the recent media exposes revealing the taudry pay-to-play nature of the Clinton Foundation. Top on the list of foreign donors to the foundation is Saudi Arabia, which contributed between $10 million and $25 million.

What did the Saudis get for their largesse and access? Wikileaks revealed a 2009 cable by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying:"More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar e-Tayyiba and other terrorist groups." Instead of sanctioning the Saudis, Clinton did the opposite: She authorized enormous quantities of weapons to be sold to them. On Christmas Eve in 2011, Hillary Clinton and her closest aides celebrated a massive $29.4 billion sale to the Saudis of over 80 F-15 fighter jets, manufactured by Boeing, a company which coincidentally contributed $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation. In a chain of enthusiastic emails, an aide exclaimed that it was “not a bad Christmas present.” I’m sure the Yemenis at the receiving end of the Saudi bombings would not be so enthusiastic.

The Clintons have said that if Hillary Clinton gets elected, the foundation will stop taking foreign donations. But what about no longer taking campaign contributions from people who are paid by the Saudi government to whitewash its image? The Podesta Group should be blacklisted from contributing to Clinton’s campaign until they drop the monarchy as a client and return their ill-gotten gains. If Hillary Clinton wants to be a meaningful symbol for human rights and women’s empowerment, her campaign must live up to the values she claims to represent, and this would be one step in the right direction.

[HFTengineer]

Saudi Arabia is in the market for a better reputation in Washington, D.C.

In September alone, foreign lobbying disclosure documents show the Saudi government signing deals with PR powerhouse Edelman and lobbying leviathan the Podesta Group, according to recent disclosures.

Edelman, the largest privately owned public relations agency in the world, is known for helping clients win favorable media coverage on mainstream outlets. The Podesta Group is a lobbying firm founded by Tony Podesta, a major fundraiser for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

The new signings are the latest in a year-long hiring spree by the Persian Gulf state as it further builds up its already formidable political arsenal inside the Beltway. The Saudi Arabian Royal Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

In March, the Saudi Royal Embassy retained two influential lobbying firms, DLA Piper and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. DLA Piper, for instance, employs a small army of former government officials, including retired U.S. Sens. Saxby Chambliss and George Mitchell. Also in March, the embassy retained two firms that specialize in analyzing big data for political clients, Targeted Victory and Zignal Labs.

Saudi Arabia’s political operation already includes former Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who chairs one of the largest Republican Super PACs in the country, as well as the public relations firm MSLGROUP/Qorvis, and Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company that funds several influential American political groups, including the American Petroleum Institute. Aramco’s U.S. subsidiary, Saudi Refining, is a registered agent of the Saudi government. The government also finances a number of think tanks and universities, and has made contributions to prominent American nonprofits, including the Clinton Foundation.

The Podesta Group contract is with the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court. The contract, filed in the Justice Department’s foreign lobbying database, says that the firm will provide “public relations” work for the center.

“It is our company policy not to comment further on our work for clients beyond what is required by law and to direct reporters and other interested parties to our clients for any additional information,” said Missi Tessier, a spokesperson for the Podesta Group, when reached for more information about the relationship.

Edelman’s contract calls for the firm to “engage with opinion influencers, establish media engagement opportunities for [sic] principal, and assist in opinion editorial placement” on behalf of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority.

The Saudi regime is currently facing yet another public relations crisis as the Kingdom moves to execute Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, the young nephew of a government critic.

The nation also faces international outcry over the widespread killing of civilians in Yemen. Since March, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition that includes the U.S., U.K., Egypt and several Persian Gulf nations to support the Yemeni government in its war against the Houthi rebels. The Saudi-led coalition has repeatedly attacked schools, hospitals, and other civilian targets, including recent reports of a wedding party that was bombed, killing over 100 people.

Last week, I spoke to a number of lawmakers about Saudi human rights abuses, but found them extremely reluctant to criticize the Kingdom. Disclosures reveal that the lobbying firms that have worked for Saudi Arabia for years communicate frequently with senior members of Congress. Beyond entrenched military and economic ties between Saudi Arabia and the United States, the Kingdom appears to be working to maintain its political clout.

[HFTengineer]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-firms-in-u-s/

A number of Hillary Clinton’s top lobbyist bundlers, who have raised millions for her presidential campaign, either directly represent foreign entities or work at firms that represent foreign entities, according to documents from the Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Unit.

Hillary for America, Clinton’s campaign committee, has hauled in more than $7 million in bundled lobbyist contributions since its inception. The committee finished 2015 with $4.1 million in bundled lobbyist contributions. It has since added more than $2.9 million to its coffers from lobbyists, with $1.2 million of that amount pouring in during the second quarter of 2016, from April 1 to June 30.

Tony Podesta, owner of the Podesta Group and brother of John Podesta, the chairman of Clinton’s campaign, is a top bundler for Hillary for America. Podesta has bundled $267,835 in contributions to date. Podesta was hired to work on behalf of Saudi interests.

Saudi Arabia has built an extensive lobbying and public relations presence in the United States, the Washington Post reported in April. It has also supplied the Clinton Foundation with millions. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has given between $10 and $25 million to the foundation while Friends of Saudi Arabia has contributed between $1 and $5 million.

A Saudi government entity, called the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court, hired the Podesta Group to push its interests. Podesta personally lobbies on the group’s behalf, and his firm collects $140,000 a month for its services.

Hogan Lovells LLP, another U.S. firm hired by the Saudis, is registered to work for the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia through 2016, disclosures show. Robert Kyle, a lobbyist from the firm, has bundled $50,850 for Clinton’s campaign.

In addition to Saudi Arabia, Podesta is registered to lobby on behalf of Sberbank CIB USA Inc., a subsidiary of Russia’s largest bank, which is majority owned by the government.

The Security Services of Ukraine accused Sberbank of transferring money to pro-Russia “terrorists” fighting for Soviet occupation in April 2014, a charge denied by the bank.

Podesta’s job according to the disclosure forms is to assist the bank in clarifying the scope of sanctions from Executive Order 13660, which President Obama signed in March 2014 to block “property of certain persons contributing to the situation in Ukraine.” Podeseta is also tasked with exploring possible avenues for sanctions relief.

Emanuel A. “Mike” Manatos, the senior vice president at the D.C.-based government relations firm Manatos & Manatos, was hired by the VTB Group, a Russian financial group that includes VTB Bank—another large financial institution that is majority owned by the government—, according to a foreign agents registration disclosure.

Manatos was tapped to provide counsel to VTB and to lobby the United States Congress and the Obama administration on sanctions imposed on Russian-affiliated banks. He has bundled $40,300 for Hillary for America.

Bundlers to Clinton’s campaign also lobby on behalf of Turkish interests.

Capitol Counsel LLC, a D.C.-based firm, provides government relations services to the Republic of Turkey, disclosures show. David Jones and Richard Sullivan, both partners at Capitol Counsel, combined to bundle $1.3 million for Clinton’s campaign; Jones has bundled $762,666 while Sullivan has bundled $546,030.

The Alliance for Shared Values, a New York-based nonprofit that is part of the Islamic Gülen movement—a religious and social movement led by Fethullah Gülen, who now resides in the United States—has also hired the Podesta Group, the Daily Caller reported. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has launched a crackdown on supporters of the movement.

Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP, a Denver-based lobbying shop, represents the Embassy of Mexico and was paid $52,000 for its services last year. Alfred Mottur, who works in D.C. for the firm, has bundled $32,355 for Clinton’s campaign.

McGuirewoods Consulting LLC lobbies on behalf of the Embassy of Japan. The firm employs Clinton campaign bundler Andrew Smith, who has pulled together $29,700 for Hillary for America.

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, which fields three Clinton campaign bundlers, also works with the Japanese embassy. Hogan Lovells, who lobbies for the Saudi Embassy, is also registered to represent the government of Japan.


http://freebeacon.com/politics/top-c...s-governments/

[HFTengineer]

https://lobelog.com/neocons-defend-saudi-arabia/

Neocons Defend Saudi Arabia
by Jim Lobe

Much of the West is focused on the latest sectarian provocations by Saudi Arabia, such as the execution of Shiite leader Sheik Nimr Baqr al-Nimr followed by the formal breaking of diplomatic relations with Iran in uber-retaliation for the attack on the kingdom’s embassy in Tehran. U.S. neoconservatives, however, are standing in support of that wellspring of expansionist Wahhabism.

It’s remarkable that just 14 years ago, neocons like Richard Perle were calling for the Bush administration to include Riyadh among the capitals on Washington’s post-9/11 target list. Now the Saud family has again become their dearest friend. No less remarkable is how those fearless defenders of Western values and democratic governance are rallying in defense of an absolute monarchy and the undisputed and deep-pocketed leader of the counter-revolution against the reformist movements of the “Arab Spring.”

That great champion of human rights and democracy, Elliott Abrams, and the hard-line neocon’s most influential print medium, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, were quickest off the mark in attacking Iran and defending the poor, abandoned Saudis, respectively. Bill Kristol’s Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), meanwhile, made it clear which side should be favored in a release posted on its website early Tuesday afternoon. Its list of “resources” made clear that, no matter the provocation, Iran should always be considered “Public Enemy #1.” The administration’s attempt to appear more-or-less even-handed in the escalating crisis—or even a little critical of Riyadh—was yet another deplorable example of Obama’s weakness and appeasement. The clearest critique came from Abrams’s fellow senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Max Boot, in a Commentary Contentions post with the title “An American Ally of Necessity.”

In the lawless jungle that is the international system, nations seldom have the luxury of choosing good over evil. Usually, it is a matter of choosing a lesser evil over a greater evil. So it was in World War II, when we allied with Stalin to stop Hitler, and so it is today in the case of Saudi Arabia versus Iran. The two countries are in a contest for power and influence across the Middle East. Both are human-rights violators, but we should make no mistake that Iran is far worse from the American perspective: not only morally but also strategically.
The American policy should be clear: We should stand with the Saudis – and the Egyptians, and the Jordanians, and the Emiratis, and the Turks, and the Israels [sic], and all of our other allies – to stop the new Persian Empire. But the Obama administration, morally and strategically confused, is instead coddling Iran in the vain hope that it will somehow turn Tehran from enemy into friend.
At least, Boot doesn’t sugar-coat Riyadh. It’s merely Stalin to Iran’s Hitler.

Krauthammer to the Rescue

But FPI’s list isn’t comprehensive. Here’s Charles Krauthammer who predictably blames the Iran deal and Obama’s “complete abandonment” of the poor Saudis for Nimr’s execution:

Just last week the U.S. responded to the firing of the missiles, illegal firing of the nuclear-capable missiles by Iran by threatening trivial sanctions and then actually canceling, or postponing the sanctions, when the Iran protested and said they would increase their production of missiles. In other words, the U.S. would not even respond to an open provocation on the missile issue, and what they read is complete abandonment. They are now on their own, and then they’re not going to have to face the Iranians and their allies on their own. And if that means they have to execute a Shiite who is an insurrectionist in their country, he’s got to be executed.
Krauthammer expresses deep sympathy for the Saudis, suggesting that their nearly 10-month-old U.S.-backed military intervention in Yemen, by far the Arab world’s poorest country, should be seen as a strictly defensive measure against Iranian aggression: “In Yemen, which is, remember, right on the doorstep of Saudi Arabia—it’s not removed the way Syria is—and they see serious encirclement.” (Krauthammer conveniently omits to mention either the notable gains made by both Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) as a result of the highly destructive Saudi-led military campaign and naval blockade.)

Attacking Nimr

Other neocon writers have argued that Nimr himself was essentially an Iranian agent and his execution justified. Here’s David Pryce-Jones on The National Review website:

A man seemingly in his late fifties, Sheikh al-Nimr was the unacknowledged leader of the Shiites in the country. This meant that he had the support of Iran, where Shiites are the majority. Since the 1979 revolution in Iran, the Shiites have been pursuing imperial ambitions against the United States and Israel, but above all against Sunnis. To the Saudi regime in contrast, Sheikh al-Nimr was nothing less than a heretic and a traitor.
…He uses his sermonizing for exclusive political purposes, raising his voice to rant about the Saudi king and the royal family, calling for their overthrow and delighting that the previous king is in the grave. This style is practized rather widely. …But what consequences could Sheikh al-Nimr have expected? He was inviting martyrdom quite as certainly as if he were a suicide bomber.
According to the inimitable Lee Smith, writing in Kristol’s Weekly Standard, the Obama administration, by expressing concern about Nimr’s execution, had effectively sided with Tehran. Worse, it had also legimitized Iran’s alleged pretensions to represent Shias around the world and thus delivered a serious blow to the entire nation-state system.

[W]hy does [the administration] perceive the action of a sovereign state regarding one of its own citizens to be so “provocative” that it was likely to compel another sovereign state to take violent action? It is because the White House understands that Tehran regarded and still regards Nimr as an Iranian asset. With Nimr alive and free, the Iranians saw him as a potential agent of Saudi destabilization. With Nimr imprisoned and now dead, Iran gets to claim him as one of its own and wave the Shiite banner. In acknowledging Nimr as an Iranian protégé, the White House is backing Tehran’s campaign as final interlocutor on all matters Shiite, regardless of state sovereignty.
Smith also notes that Riyadh may be a problematic ally at times, but nonetheless insists that an attack on Saudi’s diplomatic offices should be seen as an attack on “us.”

There is no doubt that Riyadh is, to say the least, a very difficult ally in many ways. However, it is part of the American order of the Middle East and has been so for 70 years. Iran sees it this way as well. Therefore, an attack on Saudi diplomatic facilities is an attack on our side, our order, us. They see other traditional U.S. regional partners—like Jordan, Turkey, and Israel—in the same way.
The sacking of Riyadh’s embassy in Tehran, rather than Nimr’s execution, was of great concern for Abrams, who served as assistant secretary of state for human rights in the Reagan administration and as deputy national security advisor for global democracy strategy (among other posts) under George W. Bush. He cited it as

another piece of evidence that Iran refuses to live by the rules of civilized diplomatic practice, and that its behavior has gotten worse not better since the signing of the nuclear deal–whose “outreach” was supposed to change Iran’s conduct. Next time someone suggests opening a U.S. embassy in Tehran as part of the improvement in our relations, remember today’s incident. The Islamic Republic still sees the invasion of embassies as an acceptable political tool.
Target: Iran

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has gone on a veritable jihad against Iran and Obama’s policy and in defense of the Saudi kingdom. Its lead editorial Monday “Who Lost the Saudis?” suggested that both Iran and Russia may be trying to overthrow the House of Saud during the final year of Obama’s presidency. Among other assertions, the column noted that Nimr “led a Shiite uprising in 2011”—a rather tendentious word to apply to overwhelmingly peaceful street protests that took place in the country’s Eastern Province during the Arab Spring. The column continues:

Iran already has ample reason to want to topple the Saudis, who are its main antagonist in the Shiite vs. Sunni conflict that has swept the region amid America’s retreat. The two are fighting a proxy war in Yemen, after a Saudi-led coalition intervened to stop a takeover by Iran’s Houthi allies. The Saudis are also the leading supporter of the non-Islamic State Sunnis who are fighting Syria’s ally Bashar Assad. [Emphasis added to suggest that perhaps the non-Islamic State Sunnis may include Jabhat al-Nusra, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.]
The conclusion:

The Saudis are often difficult allies, especially the support by rich Wahhabi sheikhs for radical Islamist mosques and schools around the world. But in a Middle East wracked by civil wars, political upheaval and Iranian imperialism, the Saudis are the best friend we have in the Arabian peninsula. The U.S. should make clear to Iran and Russia that it will defend the Kingdom from Iranian attempts to destabilize or invade.
But the Journal was hardly finished. On Tuesday, it celebrated what it called “Sunni Arab solidarity”—a reference to what it initially called the decision by Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to follow Saudi Arabia “in severing ties with Iran.” It later corrected that version, noting that UAE did not break diplomatic relations with Tehran. The editorial writers also apparently decided against mentioning Sudan among those who bravely cut ties to Tehran. After all the Bush administration—and Abrams—had called Sudan genocidal and Riyadh had coaxed the country into participating in its Yemen campaign.

The Journal then picked up the refrain that Obama’s “retreat” from the region has resulted not only in a loss in U.S. influence there, but also in the larger Sunni-Shia conflict:

The U.S. didn’t listen to Saudi Arabia about the Iran nuclear deal, which it believes signals a U.S. strategic tilt toward Iran and its Shiite allies in the Middle East. They see the Administration backing down on sanctions against Iran for testing ballistic missiles that can reach Riyadh long before they get to New York. They feel under threat from an Iran liberated from sanctions, and they don’t believe President Obama will defend them in a conflict. Why should they heed the U.S. now?
A Middle East dividing into Sunni and Shiite blocs is the predictable consequence of Mr. Obama’s strategy of retreat from the region. As elsewhere, U.S. allies in the Middle East will do what they feel they must to survive, never mind American disapproval.
Of course, what the editorial failed to note was the fact that the creation of so-called Sunni and Shiite blocs in the region preceded Obama’s alleged “strategy of retreat” and actually began (in its most recent incarnation) with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the empowerment of the Shia majority there, and the subsequent “de-Baathification” of the country. The neocons (including the Journal’s editorial board) not only supported this strategy but also conceived and actively promoted it (alongside their favorite Iraqi exile, the late Ahmad Chalabi). At the highest level, our Saudi friends (as well as the U.S. intelligence community) back then publicly warned the Bush administration about the possible regional consequences of an invasion. But Bush and the neocons, including the Journal’s editorial board, didn’t listen. How things have changed.

Photo: Elliott Abrams

[HFTengineer]

http://www.mintpressnews.com/saudis-...-yemen/221250/



The United Nations has long been bullied by its most powerful members, and U.N. secretaries-general have usually been forced to grit their teeth and take it quietly. But few nations have been more publicly brazen in this practice than Saudi Arabia, and earlier this summer, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon managed to get in a dig at the Kingdom over its blackmail-style tactics. Ban openly admitted that it was only after Riyadh threatened to cut off funding to the U.N. that he bowed to its demand to remove the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, where it has launched a harsh military intervention, from a list of violators of children’s rights contained in the annex of his annual Children and Armed Conflict report. “The report describes horrors no child should have to face,” Ban told reporters. “At the same time, I also had to consider the very real prospect that millions of other children would suffer grievously if, as was suggested to me, countries would defund many U.N. programs.”

But the secretary-general wasn’t done. “It is unacceptable for U.N. member states to exert undue pressure,” Ban added. The removal of the Saudis from the list was also, he claimed, “pending review.”

For the United States, it was another reminder of what an uncomfortable ally the Saudi kingdom can be (as was the July release of a hitherto classified section of a 2002 report into the 9/11 attacks that suggested, among other things, that the wife of then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan gave money to the wife of a suspected 9/11 co-conspirator). No one has become more familiar with this awkwardness than the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, the erstwhile human-rights icon (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Problem from Hell) who has been forced to look the other way as a powerful U.S. ally does as it pleases in Yemen with political, logistical and military cover from Washington. Since news broke of Ban’s decision, I have asked Power’s office for a direct response to Saudi funding threats. Neither she nor her staff has ever replied.

Yemeni boys hold weapons as they sit on a pick-up truck during a demonstration by supporters of the Shiite Huthi movement in the capital Sanaa on April 22, 2015, against the Saudi-led military "Decisive Storm" air campaign | Mohammed Huwais/AFP via Getty Images
Yemeni boys hold weapons as they sit on a pick-up truck during a demonstration by supporters of the Shiite Huthi movement in the capital Sanaa on April 22, 2015, against the Saudi-led military “Decisive Storm” air campaign | Mohammed Huwais/AFP via Getty Images
Using their oil wealth as a weapon — and tacitly encouraged by their most powerful ally, Washington, which has supplied Riyadh with targeting assistance, logistical support and daily aerial refueling of coalition jets in Yemen — the Saudis have refused to moderate their stance. “The U.S. silence has been deafening in the face of aggressive Saudi bullying to prevent the U.N. from condemning a horrendously abusive military campaign that has killed and maimed hundreds of children,” said Philippe Bolopion, deputy director for global advocacy and former U.N. director at Human Rights Watch. “This blatant double standard deeply undermines U.S. efforts to address human rights violations whether in Syria or elsewhere in the world.”

Ban’s honesty hasn’t helped Washington. While human rights organizations initially pilloried the lame-duck secretary-general — he leaves office at the end of 2016 — for bowing to the intimidation of a wealthy donor, many diplomats and U.N. observers said Ban also set an important precedent for calling out powerful member states.

In June, after Ban went public, State Department spokesperson Mark Toner did make one oblique comment, that the U.N. “should be permitted to carry out its mandate, carry out its responsibilities, without fear of money being cut off.” The U.S. itself, however, has already set a precedent for doing just that: after the U.N.’s cultural agency, UNESCO, recognized Palestine in 2011, the United States suspended its contributions worth $80 million annually, or more than a fifth of the agency’s budget. Both the Saudi threat and the U.S. pinch on UNESCO, like the perennial menace of vetoes on the Security Council, undermine the authority vested in the U.N.

U.S. support for the Saudis in Yemen has weakened Washington morally at the U.N., allowing Russia and other countries to call the Americans hypocritical for “politicizing” Syrian humanitarian access while supporting a coalition that is blockading anntire country, helping to worsen what in Yemen is numerically the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to U.N. figures for those in need of aid. While the U.S. has highlighted the toll of Russian bombs in Syria, it has been less willing to criticize Moscow’s use of cluster munitions. The weapons are widely banned internationally under a U.N. treaty, but the Pentagon maintains they can be used appropriately. The Saudis offer a prime example of their reckless use in Yemen, where they’ve unleashed them in populated areas. The more flagrant the Saudis are in their behavior, the harder it is for Washington to bury the underlying hypocrisy of its support.

This February, amid a deadly Russian air campaign in support of regime forces aiming to encircle Aleppo, the Security Council met urgently on the humanitarian situation in the city and elsewhere in Syria. But upon leaving the session, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin used the Yemen card, telling reporters, “We are going to propose weekly meetings on the humanitarian situation in Yemen.”

However, when subsequent discussions on Yemen appeared poised to yield a resolution on humanitarian access in the country, the Saudis and other Gulf States met with diplomats from the U.S., France and the United Kingdom to complain. Unlike Syria, for which a similar resolution was passed, no such resolution has been mustered by the Council for Yemen.

The Saudi threat to cut vital funding streams — delivered forcefully, and directly by Riyadh’s foreign minister to Ban and his top political adviser — should come as little surprise to anyone who has watched Saudi Arabia’s erratic and often abusive relationship with the U.N. since the Saudis began bombing Yemen last March.

“It’s obvious the Saudis were paying and bullying everyone who dared to say anything, and the U.N. unfortunately was boxed in” — senior U.N. political official
As Saudi behavior grew more careless publicly, both on the ground in Yemen in the halls of the U.N., the silence from Washington, and at the U.S. mission to the U.N. in New York, continued. Ambassador Power even found herself defending an intervention in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians, coincided with the spread of Al Qaeda, and undercut her own passionate work to draw attention to the crimes of the Assad regime in Syria.

But there is another reason the U.S. has said little about the strong-arm tactics employed by its closest Arab ally: The hypocrisy might be too much to take. Just last year, the U.S. was instrumental in keeping Israel off the very annex the Saudis found themselves on this month. Leila Zerrougui, the U.N.’s special representative for children and armed conflict, had endorsed the inclusion of both the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas on the blacklist. In the end, neither was, but the pressure exerted by Washington and Israel occurred largely behind the scenes, according to diplomatic norms that are now under the spotlight.

The Saudi intervention has a great deal to do with Riyadh’s fears of its great regional rival, Iran, which has backed the Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen. It began last March when, following rapid advances of the Houthis, who are allied with former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the new Saudi King, Salmon, announced a hastily formed coalition of Sunni Arab states. His son, deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman — more recently the darling of the financial press for his consulting-firm endorsed plans to reform the Saudi economy — was put in charge of the campaign. The coalition’s nominal goal was to reinstate Saleh’s post-Arab Spring successor, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had fled the country, but also to counter the rise of the Houthis as a proxy of Iran.

With the help of the U.S. military, Riyadh was able to impose a blockade, by air and sea, and commence attacks on their southern neighbor. Prior to the war, Yemen was already the poorest country in the Arab world and soon commercial stocks of food and fuel, as well as drugs and other medical supplies, were running dangerously low. By September, the U.N. estimated Yemen was receiving just 1 percent of the fuel imports it required. Today, more than 21 million people in Yemen are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance and half the population suffers from food insecurity and malnutrition — figures that dwarf Syria’s.

Another early casualty of the blockade was the access often afforded by the U.N. to foreign journalists and human rights officials working for nonprofit groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. In May, two months into the Saudi intervention, and as the civilian death toll in Yemen approached 400, senior U.N. officials in Yemen decided that neither group would be allowed on U.N. flights into and out of the country. At the time, seats on commercial routes operated by the national carrier Yemenia Airway were difficult or impossible to obtain — when the planes ran at all. Those flights were routed through Saudi Arabia, where officials have oversight of passenger manifests.

The U.N. also maintained its own chartered plane, large enough to fit 27 or 28 people, that had begun flying several times a week between Djibouti and the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital of Sanaa. But journalists and human rights NGO workers were banned from those flights as well; U.N. officials based in Yemen, Europe and New York, who spoke on condition of anonymity, and several aid workers said the policy stemmed from the Saudi rejection of a single flight manifest earlier in May that contained several journalists, including reporters from the New York Times and BBC.

Several U.N. staffers suggested the decision seemed to go against Ban’s Human Rights up Front agenda. That initiative, meant to give special privileges to human rights reporting, civilian protection and the prevention of “large-scale” violations of international law, was introduced largely in response to the organization’s inaction during the last months of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009 in which tens of thousands of civilians were killed.

A Yemeni man waves his national flag during a protest against the ongoing conflict, on the eve of the UN-brokered peace talks in Kuwait, in the country's third-largest the city, on April 17, 2016 | Ahmad Al-Basha/AFP via Getty Images
A Yemeni man waves his national flag during a protest against the ongoing conflict, on the eve of the UN-brokered peace talks in Kuwait, in the country’s third-largest the city, on April 17, 2016 | Ahmad Al-Basha/AFP via Getty Images
Even those aid workers and U.N. staff that were allowed in have found their trips are dependent on the Saudi government, which approves or denies access for all U.N. flights.

“Should the U.N. allow a government to accept such restrictions, which clearly restrict access to beneficiaries?” asked one aid worker, who spoke anonymously in order to protect their organization’s continued access in Yemen.

Some journalists instead undertook dangerous journeys by sea into Yemen from the African coast. One reporter, Matthieu Aikins, on assignment from Rolling Stone with a cameraman, was smuggled into the country on a 23-foot-long vessel — becoming one of the first Western journalists to break through the blockade and document the toll of the air war. Aikins said that prior to his departure from Djibouti, U.N. officials told him that the Saudis were no longer allowing foreign journalists to travel to Yemen. Donatella Rovera, senior crisis response adviser at Amnesty International, said she was booked on a flight from Djibouti to Sanaa in late June, before being told “last minute that we were off the list” — forcing her to find alternative travel through Jordan.

As journalists and human rights workers struggled to gain entry into Yemen, the news that did emerge grew direr. In May, Human Rights Watch first reported the use of cluster munitions by the coalition, and by the second half of that month, the U.N. had recorded 1,037 civilian deaths since the start of the Saudi intervention. Many of those deaths were the result of wild and indiscriminant Houthi anti-aircraft fire, but hundreds more were caused by Saudi airstrikes. It was increasingly clear that war crimes could be taking place, but another month would pass before more international journalists began to trickle into the country.

On several occasions, Riyadh’s ambassador to the U.N. has denied the use of cluster munitions by the coalition, despite extensive documentation by human rights groups and journalists.
At the U.N. in New York, a new humanitarian chief, Stephen O’Brien, took office at the end of May, inheriting crises in Yemen, Syria and South Sudan, and massive funding gaps across the board. There was one bright spot, or so it seemed — on April 18, the Saudi government pledged to meet a $274 million U.N. “flash appeal” for Yemen, requested just the previous day. But the negotiations that followed, and foot-dragging on the part of the Saudis, would set a pattern for the coming year when Riyadh’s diplomats repeatedly embarrassed O’Brien and his office. Desperate for a steady stream of Gulf money, U.N. officials were accommodating toward the Saudis, a stance that became increasingly dissonant as the civilian toll of their bombs escalated, and the coalition’s blockade meant the U.N. would have to serve ever more famished Yemenis.

“It’s obvious the Saudis were paying and bullying everyone who dared to say anything, and the U.N. unfortunately was boxed in,” said the senior U.N. political official.

That October, after the Saudis finally announced agreements with nine U.N. agencies to disburse the money (the terms of which have never been made public), Riyadh undertook an elaborate press junket in New York, lauding its humanitarian programming in Yemen. Looking glum and uneasy, U.N. humanitarian chief O’Brien highlighted the U.N.’s relationship with the Saudis’ King Salman Humanitarian Aid & Relief Center. By then, the U.N. had recorded 2,355 civilian deaths in Yemen, the majority from coalition airstrikes, which O’Brien that summer told the Security Council had in some cases violated international law. It later became clear that the Saudi delegation had effectively dragged O’Brien to the U.N. briefing room after a meeting in Ban’s office upstairs.

The U.N., O’Brien told reporters, couldn’t afford to turn down any aid, including from Saudi Arabia, “because that is existential.”

It was during the same junket, at a separate event in New York, where Riyadh’s ambassador to the U.N., Abdallah al-Mouallimi, admitted for the first time, to this reporter, that the coalition had bombed a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in northern Yemen earlier that week (the bombing took place almost at the same time as O’Brien’s news conference with the Saudis). The ambassador, however, blamed MSF for providing incorrect coordinates. A miniscandal ensued, during which the ambassador falsely claimed to reporters that he had been “misquoted or the quotations were taken out of context.” On several other occasions, Mouallimi has denied the use of cluster munitions by the coalition, despite extensive documentation by human rights groups and journalists. He routinely calls into question any U.N. reporting indicating the Saudi coalition has killed civilians, even as that number surpasses 2,000.

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Other powerful U.N. member states, like Russia, are well known in U.N. circles for performing elegant logical contortions when confronted with incriminating evidence, such as the civilian toll from Moscow’s strikes in Syria. But the Saudis are inexperienced and can appear petulant in the spotlight. Last year was also perceived as a low point in the Kingdom’s history: The Iran nuclear deal it lobbied against was signed; its interests in Syria took a serious blow as Russia acted to prop up the Assad regime; oil prices bottomed out around $30 per barrel; and its intervention in Yemen was not only attracting unwanted attention, but was by most measurements a failure.

One Western diplomat recalled how expertly the U.S. and Israel were able to pressure Ban into removing Israel from the same Children and Armed Conflict annex — a development that angered many, but garnered far less attention. Not so for the Saudis. “It’s the difference between how big corporations handle things and how the Corleones handle things,” said the diplomat.

Their erratic behavior came to a head in February, when Saudi officials sent a series of letters to the U.N. and aid organizations, warning them to leave areas under Houthi control. If taken literally, that meant the majority of Yemen’s populated areas, including Sanaa, where U.N. operations were headquartered. A first letter, sent on February 5 to O’Brien’s agency, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), ominously asked that the U.N. “notify all the international organizations working in Yemen about the necessity of relocating their headquarters outside the military operations area to be away from regions where the Houthi militias and the groups belonging to them are activating, in order for the Coalition forces to guarantee the safety and security of the international organizations.” Another letter, marked “urgent” was sent directly to NGOs from the Saudi Embassy in London.

O’Brien responded within 48 hours, reminding Saudi Arabia of its obligations under international humanitarian law, and explaining that the U.N. would continue to serve Yemen’s communities. In a subsequent letter to the OCHA chief, Mouallimi walked back Saudi demands, clarifying that humanitarian workers should not be near military bases belonging to the Houthis and supporters of Saleh — still a vague assertion when 2,000-pound bombs are in play. To aid workers in Yemen, the unprompted Saudi communications showed, at best, a country dangerously fighting war from the hip, making things up as it went along. Even if the letters were simply an attempt to comply with international law gone awry, humanitarians already had reason to be concerned: just weeks earlier, a leaked Security Council Panel of Experts report counted 22 coalition attacks on hospitals during the war.

A month later, in March, as the Children and Armed Conflict report was first passed among diplomats, there was separate talk in the Security Council of a humanitarian resolution aimed specifically at Yemen, potentially with explicit language on the protection of civilians. Mouallimi, evidently concerned about the prospect, called a news conference in the same briefing room, which he moderated on his own — a rarity for most ambassadors. There he told reporters in no uncertain terms that O’Brien’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had, in fact, told him that there was no need for such a resolution. “You can quote them on that,” he said, speaking for the U.N.

Saudi Arabia's permanent representative to the United Nations Abdallah Al-Mouallimi speaks at the UN headquarters in New York on January 22, 2015 | Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images
Saudi Arabia’s permanent representative to the United Nations Abdallah Al-Mouallimi speaks at the UN headquarters in New York on January 22, 2015 | Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images
Less than two weeks after the news conference, Saudi-coalition jets killed more than 100 civilians in a market in northwest Yemen, according to U.N. investigators.

“It would seem the coalition is responsible for twice as many civilian casualties as all other forces put together, virtually all as a result of airstrikes,” said U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, in the aftermath of that attack.

In September, as the civilian toll in Yemen continued mounting, Zeid had called for an independent, international inquiry into the conflict. At the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Dutch representatives introduced a resolution that would have created such a body, only to see their support melt away in the face of intense pressure from the Saudis and their allies. Instead, the council passed a Gulf-authored resolution endorsing a national investigation controlled by the exiled Hadi government. That inquiry was widely seen as biased and unequipped, and moreover had no access to most of Yemen.

According to diplomats, the U.S. was largely quiet during negotiations over the text, allowing the Saudis to bully the Netherlands — literally sitting with them at a coffee table and crossing out sections of the resolution the U.N. human rights chief wanted.

The Yemeni government investigation favored by the Human Rights Council has yet to release any findings. The U.S., which has sold more than $100 billion in arms to the Saudis since 2010, and which continues to support the coalition with targeting and indispensable refueling flights and logistics, defers to the Saudis when asked about investigations into civilian casualties. When it was released on June 2, Ban’s annual Children in Armed Conflict Report confirmed what many diplomats had already seen when the text was distributed as a draft months earlier: that the coalition was responsible for 60 percent of child deaths—some 510 were killed by the coalition — and injuries in 2015. In the annex that accompanies the report, Ban added the Saudi coalition, along with other parties to the conflict in Yemen, including the Houthis and Al Qaeda.

The response was quick: According to senior U.N. officials, several Gulf allies complained to the U.N. about the report, and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir called Ban over the weekend to express his displeasure. Nevertheless, on Monday, Ban spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told journalists that no part of the report would change in any way. That afternoon, Jubeir called again, this time dialing Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, a former U.S. State Department official who is now Ban’s top political adviser. Feltman, according to diplomats, communicates regularly with Power, although it’s unclear to what extent she was aware of the Saudi messages.

Jubeir relayed far stronger threats to Feltman, including the specter of a break in relations with the U.N. and cuts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to vital U.N. programing including to the organization’s relief agency in Palestine. Saudi Arabia is one of the largest donors to the U.N., funding a number of additional programs in the Middle East. In 2014, Jubeir, then the ambassador to Washington, announced $500 million to assist Iraqis displaced by the Islamic State.

But financial coercion is also a habit of Jubeir’s: According to the New York Times, earlier this year he told U.S. officials and politicians in Washington that Riyadh would sell hundreds of millions in Treasury bonds and other American assets if Congress passed legislation making it easier for the Saudi government to be sued for alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

Shortly after Jubeir’s call to Feltman, Ban’s office announced the coalition would be removed from the annex pending review. At the U.N., Mouallimi said the Saudis were vindicated, and he called the decision “final and unconditional.”

On June 9, Ban essentially conceded that the decision to take the Saudis from the annex was made to protect U.N. financing.
The Saudis might have had reason to be angry. In emerging as a top donor, they have come to expect the same respect that other large donors like the U.S., European Union and Japan enjoy. The U.S., meanwhile, has a history of politicizing its donations, exemplified by the UNESCO cut. And Russia, which has killed hundreds of civilians in Syria — many of them children — was not fingered in Ban’s most recent report. The Houthis, as this month’s report does make clear, are also responsible for gross violations of human rights.

On June 9, after days of outcry from human rights groups, Ban gave his news conference in which he essentially conceded that the decision to take the Saudis from the annex was made to protect U.N. financing, and not because of the merits of Riyadh’s complaints.

A flummoxed Mouallimi spoke soon after, and, once again, rebutted Ban. The ambassador told reporters that “undue pressure was not exercised,” and he insisted that “the conclusions [of the report] have now been changed.” In fact, according to Ban, the findings of the report, including that 60 percent of child casualties in Yemen were caused by the Sunni coalition, will not be changed. Only the annex was altered to excise the Saudis — and temporarily, pending a review and the furnishing of additional documentation from the coalition. But instead of doing that, the Saudis themselves asked the U.N. to reveal the sources of information used in the report, which was denied.

Richard Gowan, a fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and longtime U.N. researcher, said Ban’s words in July amounted to a rhetorical coup.

“Very few diplomats or U.N. officials dare call them out for their behavior,” Gowan said of the Saudis. “At least this incident has highlighted their tactics.” He added: ”Ban has managed to avoid a total breakdown with Riyadh, yet in doing so still shone a spotlight onto both their behavior in Yemen and their behavior at the U.N.” he added.

There are further signs the U.N. may be changing its tune in Yemen. After POLITICO raised the question of access to flights by the U.N. Humanitarian Air Service, the U.N. said that the current humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick was “fully seized of the concern on the use of UNHAS by human rights organizations.”

“He believes that they, as important humanitarian partners particularly as concerns protection work, should have access to U.N. air services.” The statement added that McGoldrick was “finalizing” discussions “with relevant organizations and hopes to have a positive change to the current approach.”

But there are also signs that the Saudis aren’t keen to change their habits. Earlier this month, at the tail end of trip to the U.S., Prince Bin Salman showed up 45 minutes late for a meeting with Ban, pushing back the rest of the secretary-general’s meeting that day. In a statement following a photo-op, Ban’s office said he was still “open to receiving any new elements from Saudi Arabia,” relevant to the Children and Armed Conflict report.

Two weeks ago, Jubeir met again with Ban, after which the secretary-general’s office said he “welcomed the Coalition’s readiness to take the necessary concrete measures to end and prevent violations against children.” Ban’s office said they wanted the information before a vital Security Council debate on Children and Armed Conflict on August 2.

A separate letter sent by Zerrougui’s office to the Saudis at the end of June, and obtained by POLITICO, was more explicit. Saudi Arabia was expected to “communicate to the United Nations the commitments, measures and actions that it will undertake” in several areas, including in the “reduction of child casualties,” by July 18. That, according to the letter, would help “enable the Secretary-General to report on positive steps that have been taken following his decision to temporarily remove the coalition from the annexes to the report.”

Judging by the language, it appeared to be giving the Saudis a retroactive and permanent way off the list.

Samuel Oakford is a journalist based at the United Nations in New York, where he was previously correspondent for VICE News.