Aftandilian in The Arab Weekly on U.S. Arms Sales
Gregory Aftandilian, Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a recent Op-Ed examining whether United States President Donald Trump is likely to prevail over Congress on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Aftandilian’s Op-Ed, entitled “Trump Likely to Prevail Over Congress on Saudi and UAE Arms Sales,” was published on June 2, 2019 in The Arab Weekly.
From the text of the article:
US President Donald Trump invoked a seldom-used clause in the Arms Export Control Act to bypass the normal 30-day congressional notification process by declaring the situation involving Iran is an “emergency” that necessitates proposed arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to move forward.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the US Congress in a written statement on May 24 that such an “emergency exists” because of Iran’s “malign” influence “throughout the Middle East region.”
The arms package to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates involves more than 20 proposed sales worth a total of about $8 billion. The last time a US president invoked an emergency to allow for an arms sale to go forward in an expedited fashion was in 2006 when the George W. Bush administration sent precision-guided weapons to Israel during its military conflict with Hezbollah.
However, because the current sales involve Saudi Arabia, which has been the object of special scrutiny by Congress over human rights issues and the Yemen war, several members of Congress raised loud objections. It was only a few weeks ago that Trump vetoed a congressional bill invoking the war powers resolution that aimed to end US military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
Aftandilian spent over 21 years in government service, most recently on Capitol Hill where he was foreign policy adviser to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (2007-2008), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-2004), and foreign policy fellow to the late Senator Edward Kennedy (1999).