Britain is taking the lead on ending the Yemen war. After all, it has been urging the UN Security Council to act; that tried-and-untested path of the most resistance. As Downing Street sees it, hopes for a peace deal are now in sight. And while it remains unclear as to what exactly is pushing Number 10 towards this conclusion — it seems that London is worried about the impact of the Jamal Khashoggi murder on its global stock.
The problem, however, is that the country still does not recognise that lucrative arms sales to Saudi Arabia has made it party to the conflict. Indeed, Minister of State for the Middle East Alistair Burt said as much last week when he pooh-poohed the idea that pulling the plug on selling deadly weapons to Riyadh would yield any positive effect on Yemeni suffering. This is to say nothing of the fact that British soldiers are embedded in control centres or that Saudi fighter pilots are trained in Wales. The latter should give the Pakistani state pause for thought given that it, too, is training parts of Riyadh’s military.
Thus as Burt tells it, the only development that could potentially threaten the cosy UK-Saudi relationship are disclosures about the full extent of the Kingdom’s involvement in the Khashoggi case. All of which points to wilful moral myopia. For the simple truth is that Britain has much blood on its hands; with the number of Yemeni fatalities being put at anywhere between 56,000-80,000. It must also take responsibility for the 400,000 children under five years of age that risk death every single day due to insufficient food. As well as the 1.8 million children (also under the age of five) suffering from malnutrition.
For the simple truth is that Britain can no longer trade on the outdated myth of always fighting for the underdog. Not when it has been involved in the deaths of untold numbers of civilians in the Middle East and beyond. From the sanctions on Iraq back in the 1990s that left a reported 500,000 children under the age of five dead. Admittedly, that figure today stands disputed but this does not detract from how the US said at the time that it was a price worth paying to punish Saddam Hussein. The United Kingdom’s silence on this front underscores full complicity.
Presently, nations such as Britain represent part of the problem. For they prop up despotic regimes or, else, militarily overthrow them, to serve certain geo-political interests. And still London peddles the fantasy of an ethical foreign policy. It cannot even pretend that its own citizenry benefits from deadly arm deals. For, according to figures from earlier this year, some 4.1 million children (or more than 30 percent) live in relative poverty in the UK; up from the previous year. Thereby suggesting that the elite political and business classes remain the usual suspects when it comes to profiteering from war.
So, while Britain tries to use its influence within the UNSC — it is hoped that it also musters the gumption for honest introspection. *
Published in Daily Times, November 6th 2018.