US Senate Upholds Arms Sales to Bahrain, Qatar

The U.S. Senate on Thursday turned back resolutions aimed at disapproving multi-billion-dollar arms sales to Bahrain and Qatar, amid continued intensive congressional scrutiny of weapons sales to U.S. allies in the Middle East.

The Senate voted 43-56 against moving the Bahrain resolution out of the Foreign Relations Committee and bringing it to the floor for consideration by the full chamber. It also voted 42-57 against discharging the resolution pertaining to Qatar.

Sponsored by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the resolutions seek to block the Trump administration's decisions, announced in May, to sell U.S. missile systems to Bahrain and attack helicopters to Qatar, each valued in the $3 billion range.

"The Middle East is a hot cauldron and continually threatening to boil over," Paul said ahead of the votes. "I think it's a mistake to funnel arms into these century-old conflicts."

Paul noted that weapons sent to the Middle East can wind up in the hands of America's adversaries.

"In Iran to this day, they still have some U.S. weapons that are left over from the weapons the U.S. supplied the shah [U.S.-backed former Iranian leader overthrown in 1979]. In Iraq, some of the weapons we gave them to fight Iran were still there when we returned to fight Saddam Hussein. In Afghanistan, some of the weapons we gave to the Mujahideen to fight the Russians [in the 1980s] were still there when we returned to fight the Taliban [after the 9-11 attacks of 2001]," Paul said.

Last year, the Senate also defeated an effort by the Kentucky Republican to block the sale of rocket systems to Bahrain.

Bipartisan backing for such sales endured on Thursday, as even some senators who voted in favor of the discharge petitions as a procedural matter told VOA they do not support the underlying resolutions of disapproval.

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"I support the [arms] sales," said the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez of New Jersey. "On the process, I'm voting to preserve the [Senate's] institutional rights…for at least a debate to be had over the sales, but I support the underlying sales."

Other lawmakers spoke out against the discharge petitions as well as the resolutions.

"If they [Gulf states] don't buy arms from us, they're going to buy them from China or Russia," Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn told VOA. "Look, these countries are not democracies, we recognize that. But our interests are aligned, particularly in containing and combating Iran."