News Release

It’s Not Diplomacy, It’s an Arms Fair

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WILLIAM HARTUNG, whartung at ciponline.org
Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy and a senior advisor to the Security Assistance Monitor. He just wrote the piece “It’s Not Diplomacy, It’s an Arms Fair,” about the White House “summit” with leaders from Arabian Peninsula monarchies which states: “In its first five years in office, the Obama administration entered into formal agreements to transfer over $64 billion in arms and defense services to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, with about three-quarters of that total going to Saudi Arabia. And new offers worth nearly $15 billion have been made to Riyadh in 2014 and 2015. Items on offer to GCC states have included fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, radar planes, refueling aircraft, air-to-air missiles, armored vehicles, artillery, small arms and ammunition, cluster bombs, and missile defense systems.”

A representative of Doctors Without Boarders has a piece in the Washington Post on Thursday: “The Saudi-led blockade is devastating Yemen.”

Earlier this week, AP reported: “Iran’s navy said Tuesday it will protect an aid ship traveling to Yemen.” (On Thursday, CNN stated: “Five Iranian boats fired shots across the bow of a Singapore flagged cargo vessel in the Persian Gulf on Thursday in an attempt to potentially stop the ship, a U.S. official told CNN.”)

ROBERT NAIMAN, naiman at justforeignpolicy.org, @naiman
Policy director of Just Foreign Policy, Naiman recently traveled to Iran to participate in the aid boat. He recently wrote the piece: “Is Saudi Arabia Now the Israel of the Gulf?

CALEB MAUPIN, calebmaupin at gmail.com
Maupin is a journalist and activist who is on the boat.