In Rare Rebuke To Trump, Senate Votes To Block Saudi Arms Sales - NPR

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In this March 14, 2017 photo, President Donald Trump meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Known simply as MBS, he oversees nearly every major aspect of the country's defense, economy, internal security and foreign policy. Evan Vucci/AP hide caption

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Amid rising tensions in the Middle East, the Senate voted to rein in President Trump's powers, passing three bipartisan resolutions on Thursday blocking the administration from selling billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Seven Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, joined all Democrats in voting for the measures blocking against sales to Saudi Arabia, each passing 53-45.

With 22 separate sales pending, the other 20 resolutions involved arms sales to other allies, including the United Arab Emirates. They were voted on en bloc, whereby four Republicans joined the Democrats in that 51-45 vote.

While sending a strong signal to the administration, all three Senate votes failed to get enough votes to override a pledged veto by the president.

The House must now pass a joint resolution of disapproval, which would then go to the president's desk. It is also not expected to pass a veto.

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., introduced the measures, citing Saudi Arabia's role in the war in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been engaged in a multi-year campaign against Houthi rebels, often with disastrous consequences for the civilian population.

"If the Senate wants to show the world that, even if you are an ally you cannot kill with impunity, this is the moment," Menendez said on the Senate floor.

But the White House said the U.S. has taken "a number of actions to help the Saudi military mitigate the risk of civilian casualties in Yemen, including training and advising the Saudi military to help them improve their targeting processes to minimize civilian casualties."

In a statement, the White House said halting the arms sales "would send a message that the United States is abandoning its partners and allies at the very moment when threats to them are increasing."

"Saudi Arabia serves as a bulwark against the malign activities of Iran and its proxies," the White House said, adding that the resolutions would affect the ability of American partners "to deter and defend against Iran's hostile acts."

The administration has said it has the authority to carry out the sales because of an "emergency" in the Gulf, citing Iran's aggression in the region. The White House declared the emergency and approved the weapons sales May 24, the same day it announced the deployment of 1,500 troops to the Gulf region.

Following last year's grisly slaying of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside Saudi Arabia's Istanbul consulate, Congress has called for holding Saudi Arabia accountable, even as the administration has affirmed U.S.-Saudi ties.

Sen. Rand Paul, who was among the handful of Republicans who voted to ban the weapons sales, referenced Khashoggi on the Senate floor Thursday, saying "there is high confidence that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia butchered a dissident with a bone saw ... You would think that would give us pause as to giving Saudi Arabia or selling Saudi Arabia more weapons."

"We don't sell weapons to Russia. We don't sell weapons to China because we have disagreements and we don't think it would be in our best interest to sell them weapons," said Paul, calling Saudi Arabia itself, "untrustworthy."

Also Thursday, the Court of Appeals in the United Kingdom ruled British arm sales to Saudi Arabia for use in the Yemen War are unlawful.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said the government would suspend new sales while it looks into the implication of the ruling.

NPR's Mark Katkov and David Welna contributed to this report.

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2019-06-21 00:27:00Z
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Drone shooting raises risk of war, exposes Iran divides in Trump team - CNN

The showdown with Iran has now become the grave foreign policy crisis for President Donald Trump that many analysts have long predicted and into which the administration is entering without any obvious end game in mind.

Trump responded to the downing in an ominous fashion on Thursday morning by tweeting "Iran made a very big mistake!" But in an appearance in the Oval Office a few hours later he appeared to suggest that the order to down the drone came from a rogue element of the Iranian military.

"I find it hard to believe it was intentional," Trump said, seemingly looking for a way out of direct confrontation with Iran.

The situation is a huge test for an erratic and unpredictable President and the hawkish strategy of advisers who may be leading him into a dangerous dead end he is desperate to avoid.

Already, it is making Trump's protests that everything is just fine look out of date and superficial -- at a time when his 2020 campaign's claims to have restored leadership in the world are being outpaced by events.

"Don't worry about a thing, everything's under control, don't worry about a thing," Trump told Fox's Sean Hannity on Wednesday.

The events of recent weeks, including attacks on several energy tankers in the Gulf of Oman -- which Iran has been blamed for and denied -- and Tehran's warning that it will break internationally agreed limits on uranium production -- have heightened attention on a regime that has long been seen as a threat to US and Western interests. Tehran is accused of destabilizing its neighbors, supporting terrorism and abusing human rights.

But US allies see rising tensions as the logical result of Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, a move that was wildly popular with his base but threatened inevitable strategic reverberations that are now beginning to unfold. The administration is now for instance demanding that Iran honor a nuclear deal which it abandoned.

The turbulence in the Gulf and in Washington leaves Trump wrestling with how to respond to an Iranian assault on US prestige without setting off a chain of events that could escalate into a full-scale war between the US and Iran and the Islamic Republic's proxy forces in the region.

"What worries me is that the President's decision space gets further limited and smaller," said John Kirby, a retired navy admiral and CNN military and diplomatic analyst.

"Some of it is of his own doing and the fact that his own team is not on the same page but also now the Iranians are closing that decision space and they are pushing him into a corner and I don't think that is good for anybody," Kirby said.

Relentless pressure on Iran through economic sanctions and other means is being cranked up by two long-term enemies of the Islamic Republic — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump's national security adviser John Bolton.

There is a strong suspicion among many analysts that the pair, and other outspoken Iran hawks like Republican Sens Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, are trying to maneuver Trump into a position where a military confrontation becomes inevitable without an Iranian capitulation that seems highly unlikely.

Graham told Fox News Wednesday that Trump had "had it" with Iran. Cotton said on CBS's "Face the Nation" over the weekend that the tanker attacks -- already merited "retaliatory military strikes."

A manageable crisis could spin out of control

While the current standoff is alarming, it is currently playing out within manageable parameters. The risk is that with every inflammatory step, available off-ramps disappear.

The shooting down of the drone — Iran claims over its territory while the US says it was over international waters — is a dangerous uptick but will not in itself cause war.

Tehran does have the capacity to cross the line into a serious conflict — with thousands of US troops in the region in range of its proxies and militia allies and the world economy hostage to the flow of oil in the Gulf.

If Iran were to move on those fronts, a military confrontation that could quickly spill out of control would become inevitable. But there are still hopes that cool leadership on both sides of the conflict could avoid a disastrous war that would hammer the global economy, cause huge loss of life in the region and again expose America's inability to shape events in the Middle East to the liking of hawkish foreign policy experts in Washington.

After more than a year of fierce US economic pressure that has battered its economy, Iran is not caving, as some US officials hoped. Instead, it's using its points of leverage to make the US pay a price for its policy, to divide the allies, to probe at fractures in the administration and to put Trump on the spot.

But Trump has signaled he has no desire to get dragged into another war in the Middle East — a core political principle — especially with his reelection campaign cranking up.

Earlier this week, the President described attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman — a possible warning by Tehran of the chaos it can bring to oil supplies and the global economy — as "very minor" in an interview with Time magazine.

But now, the President must work out how to respond to the drone attack, to halt Iran's escalatory gamble while not making the situation worse and making a new gambit by Tehran inevitable.

In recent weeks, Washington has dispatched an aircraft carrier group to the vicinity of the Gulf and said it will send a moderate detachment of 1,000 more troops to the region.

Were Iran to try to impede the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the administration could be forced into a major naval operation to protect tankers and guarantee free navigation.

But the effort would require a massive financial and military commitment that would be complicated by the skepticism of US allies over the White House's Iran policy.

US Iran policy exposed

Trump has banked on Iran's clerical leaders being forced back to the negotiating table by relentless economic pressure. But such a view appears to discount 40 years of lessons about the antagonistic Iran-US relationship following the 1979 revolution.

Trump's view -- that international relations can be conducted with the former tactics of a real estate magnate -- is being seriously exposed. None of North Korea, Iran and China have reacted to massive US economic pressure by abandoning what they see as their core national interests.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week he would never sign off on talks with Trump, and there is no reason to doubt his word.

The White House's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal appears to have been read by Iran's leaders that Washington can never again be trusted to stick by the terms of a deal.

Diplomats from international powers who joined the deal say that recent events are the logical payoff from a Trump foreign policy that is geared to domestic political wins and wiping out the legacy of President Barack Obama — for whom the Iran agreement was a centerpiece.

Former Vice President Joe Biden -- the leading Democratic presidential candidate -- quickly inserted himself in the growing Washington debate over the downing of the US drone.

"President Trump's Iran strategy is a self-inflicted disaster," Biden said in a statement.

"By walking away from diplomacy, Trump has made military conflict more likely. Another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need."

The administration argued that the Iran deal -- which froze Iranian enrichment of uranium that could be used to make a nuclear bomb -- was flawed because it did not take into account Iran's nefarious behavior in its region -- including missile tests and support for extremist groups like Hezbollah.

But the deal did at least put on hold the kind of crisis that Trump is now facing.

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2019-06-20 17:05:00Z
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Trump says 'Iran made a very big mistake' after drone downing - CNN

"Iran made a very big mistake!" the President tweeted mid-morning as he and his national security officials huddled to weigh possible responses.

The ominous — if vague — message came after Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it had shot down an "intruding American spy drone" after it entered into the country's territory Thursday.

The move caused the volatile situation in the region to deteriorate further. Trump has tightened sanctions on Iran after withdrawing from the Obama-era nuclear deal last year.

An official told CNN that Trump is attending the meeting to mull responses to Iran's action this morning. A second US official told CNN that outgoing Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and incoming Acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper were both expected to attend. National security adviser John Bolton is also expected to meet with Pentagon officials today.

At the same time, Trump has sought to calm nerves, and continues to privately express wariness at wading into another foreign conflict.

"Don't worry about a thing," Trump told interviewer Sean Hannity on Fox News on Wednesday evening. "Everything's under control."

For Trump, the situation will provide a test of his willingness to engage Iran after weeks of escalation, including attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf.

In meetings with his national security team over the past several weeks, Trump has maintained his skepticism toward going to war with Iran, telling advisers he isn't interested in sending American troops into another engagement in the Middle East.

He has also told his team that regime change should not be in the cards — a position he reiterated during a news conference in Japan at the end of May.

That stance has sometimes been at odds with other members of his national security team, including Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Both have offered hawkish warnings to Iran over its behavior.

Officials said Trump is not overly concerned with the rhetoric coming from his team, despite frustrations earlier this spring that his advisers appeared to be getting out ahead of him.

Despite the efforts of Pompeo and the Pentagon to demonstrate the extent of Iran's malign activities in the Gulf by releasing evidence they claim shows Iran was behind the tanker attacks, the posture within the White House in response to these incidents has been less urgent.

One official said it is primarily because the President has not viewed these latest incidents as being enough of a trigger for escalation with Iran.

It wasn't yet clear whether the downing of the US spy drone would provide further imperious for escalation, and Trump did not clarify in his tweet on Thursday.

A second official said Trump, while keeping a close eye on the situation, has not voiced a firm view of how he wanted to proceed going forward — instead asking for options without stating what his preferred end goal might be.

In an interview with Time magazine this week, Trump laid out in greater specificity what kind of provocation would justify military action in his mind.

"I would certainly go over nuclear weapons ... and I would keep the other a question mark," Trump said.

A second source with knowledge of the situation told CNN that the administration believes Iran is targeting oil tankers in an effort to "impact the oil market" and provoke Trump over an issue that they know he cares about.

"With mines placed above the water, they knew this wasn't going to have a lot of collateral damage," the source said. "It's symbolic, and it was to affect the markets, but it hasn't had much effect."

CNN's Nicole Gaouette, Kaitlan Collins, Michelle Kosinksi and Joe Johns contributed to this report.

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2019-06-20 16:09:00Z
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Trump says 'Iran made a very big mistake' after drone downing - CNN

"Iran made a very big mistake!" the President tweeted mid-morning as his national security officials were huddling to weigh possible responses.

The ominous — if vague — message came after Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it had shot down an "intruding American spy drone" after it entered into the country's territory Thursday.

The move caused the volatile situation in the region to deteriorate further. Trump has tightened sanctions on Iran after withdrawing from the Obama-era nuclear deal last year.

At the same time, Trump has sought to calm nerves, and continues to privately express wariness at wading into another foreign conflict.

"Don't worry about a thing," Trump told interviewer Sean Hannity on Fox News on Wednesday evening. "Everything's under control."

For Trump, the situation will provide a test of his willingness to engage Iran after weeks of escalation, including attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf.

In meetings with his national security team over the past several weeks, Trump has maintained his skepticism toward going to war with Iran, telling advisers he isn't interested in sending American troops into another engagement in the Middle East.

He has also told his team that regime change should not be in the cards — a position he reiterated during a news conference in Japan at the end of May.

That stance has sometimes been at odds with other members of his national security team, including national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Both have offered hawkish warnings to Iran over its behavior.

Officials said Trump is not overly concerned with the rhetoric coming from his team, despite frustrations earlier this spring that his advisers appeared to be getting out ahead of him.

Despite the efforts of Pompeo and the Pentagon to demonstrate the extent of Iran's malign activities in the Gulf by releasing evidence they claim shows Iran was behind the tanker attacks, the posture within the White House in response to these incidents has been less urgent.

One official said it is primarily because the President has not viewed these latest incidents as being enough of a trigger for escalation with Iran.

It wasn't yet clear whether the downing of the US spy drone would provide further imperious for escalation, and Trump did not clarify in his tweet on Thursday.

A second official said Trump, while keeping a close eye on the situation, has not voiced a firm view of how he wanted to proceed going forward — instead asking for options without stating what his preferred end goal might be.

In an interview with Time magazine this week, Trump laid out in greater specificity what kind of provocation would justify military action in his mind.

"I would certainly go over nuclear weapons ... and I would keep the other a question mark," Trump said.

A second source with knowledge of the situation told CNN that the administration believes Iran is targeting oil tankers in an effort to "impact the oil market" and provoke Trump over an issue that they know he cares about.

"With mines placed above the water, they knew this wasn't going to have a lot of collateral damage," the source said. "It's symbolic, and it was to affect the markets, but it hasn't had much effect."

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2019-06-20 15:16:00Z
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US Navy drone shot down by Iranian missile over Strait of Hormuz in 'unprovoked attack,' central command says - Fox News

U.S. military officials returned fire -- verbally -- hours after Iran blasted a Navy high-altitude drone out of the sky over the Strait of Hormuz, with U.S. Central Command leaders on Thursday slamming the "unprovoked" strike and Tehran's subsequent "false" justifications for it.

President Trump said on Twitter that Iran "made a very big mistake!"

The downing of the drone, via surface-to-air missile, is only the most recent Iranian provocation in the region, coming on the heels of a disputed attack on a pair of oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week. U.S. officials say Iran was behind the tanker attacks, however, the Islamic Republic has not claimed responsibility and even suggested American involvement in the plot.

Similarly, Iran claimed the U.S. drone on Thursday was over Iranian airspace when it was shot down -- but American officials stated unequivocally the incident occurred in international airspace.

The U.S. Navy’s RQ-4A Global Hawk drone deployed to the Middle East in the past few days as part of reinforcements approved by President Trump last month. (U.S. Navy/Handout via REUTERS)

U.S. Central Command said in a statement that a U.S. Navy Broad Area Maritime Surveillance ISR aircraft, known as a BAMS-D, was shot down at approximately 7:35 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

"Iranian reports that the aircraft was over Iran are false," Capt. Bill Urban, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said in a statement. "This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset in international airspace."

LINDSEY GRAHAM: IF IRAN 'ATTACKS SHIPPING AGAIN,' US SHOULD CONSIDER 'TAKING OUT THEIR NAVY, OIL REFINERIES'

The U.S. Navy’s RQ-4A Global Hawk drone was over international airspace and about 17 miles from Iran at the time, a military source told Fox News.  The drone provides real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions  "over vast ocean and coastal regions," according to the military.

Iran also tried to shoot down another drone, but missed, U.S. officials told Fox News. Officials are now scrambling to find the wreckage in the water before Iranian forces recover it.

The Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk drone that was shot down by Iran. (Fox News)

The Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk drone deployed to the Middle East in the past few days as part of reinforcements approved by President Trump last month.

The high-altitude drone can fly up to 60,000 feet or 11 miles in altitude and loiter for 30 hours at a time. It's used to spy on Iranian military communications and track shipping in the busy waterways. Each drone costs up to $180 million dollars.

The U.S. Navy’s RQ-4A Global Hawk drone is a high-altitude drone can fly up to 60,000 feet or 11 miles in altitude and loiter for 30 hours at a time. (U.S. Navy/Handout via REUTERS)

Besides the drone incident, U.S. officials told Fox News that Iranian-backed forces fired cruise missiles Wednesday night into Saudi Arabia, hitting a power plant. The spate of recent attacks come amid the backdrop of heightened tensions after the U.S. decision a year ago to withdraw from Tehran's nuclear deal reimpose sanctions.

A commander for Iran's Revolutionary Guard claimed the drone was shot down over Iranian airspace to send a "clear message" to the U.S., and marked the first direct Iranian-claimed attack of the crisis.

"We do not have any intention for war with any country, but we are fully ready for war," Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami said in a televised address.

Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said it shot down the drone on Thursday morning -- causing some confusion about the timeline of the incident -- when it entered Iranian airspace near the Kouhmobarak district in southern Iran's Hormozgan province. Kouhmobarak is some 750 miles southeast of Tehran and close to the Strait of Hormuz.

CAL THOMAS: IS WAR WITH IRAN INEVITABLE?

The Guard said it shot down the drone at 4:05 a.m. after it collected data from Iranian territory, including the southern port of Chahbahar near Iran's border with Pakistan. Iran used its air defense system known as Third of Khordad to shoot down the drone — a truck-based missile system that can fire up to 18 miles into the sky, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

The Panama-flagged, Japanese owned oil tanker Kokuka Courageous, that the U.S. Navy says was damaged by a limpet mine, is anchored off Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, during a trip organized by the Navy for journalists, Wednesday, June 19, 2019. (AP Photo/Fay Abuelgasim)

The Guard described the drone as being launched from the southern Persian Gulf but did not elaborate. American RQ-4A Global Hawks are stationed at the Al-Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, near the capital, Abu Dhabi.

Salami, speaking to a crowd in the western city of Sanandaj, described the American drone as "violating our national security border."

"Borders are our red line," Salami said. "Any enemy that violates the borders will be annihilated."

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The U.S. said Iran fired a missile at another drone last week that responded to the attack on two oil tankers near the Gulf.

Another senior U.S. official told Fox News last week that an MQ9 Reaper drone was fired on by the Iranians shortly after it arrived at the scene where the MV Altair tanker sent out a distress signal.

Sailors stand on deck above a hole the U.S. Navy says was made by a limpet mine on the damaged Panama-flagged, Japanese owned oil tanker Kokuka Courageous, anchored off Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, during a trip organized by the Navy for journalists, Wednesday, June 19, 2019. (AP Photo/Fay Abuelgasim)

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has blamed Iran for the "blatant assault" on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

After the tanker incident, Pompeo said his assessment was based on "intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.”

Fox News' Jennifer Griffin, Lukas Mikelionis and The Associated Press contributed to this report

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2019-06-20 14:29:34Z
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Iran shoots down US drone: Live updates - CNN

The drone that the US says was shot down in international airspace on Thursday was a MQ-4C Triton, designed by US national security contractor Northrop Grumman.

It is the larger, maritime-optimized cousin to Northrop's Global Hawk, and is capable of carrying out surveillance missions for up to 24 hours, with a sensor that provides a 360-degree view of its surroundings for over 2,000 nautical miles.

Triton operates from "five land-based sites worldwide as a part of a family of maritime patrol and reconnaissance systems," according to the United States Government Accountability Office. Designs on the drone started in 2008 and it had its first flight in 2013, before reaching Initial Operational Capability (IOC) last year.

The US Navy has ordered 68 of the aircraft, which had a reported total program cost of $12.7 billion. Australia is also spending $6.2 billion to acquire six of the aircraft.

A video from the US Navy shows the aircraft making its first flight:

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2019-06-20 13:13:00Z
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Iran shoots down US drone: Live updates - CNN

The drone that the US says was shot down in international airspace on Thursday was a MQ-4C Triton, designed by US national security contractor Northrop Grumman.

It is the larger, maritime-optimized cousin to Northrop's Global Hawk, and is capable of carrying out surveillance missions for up to 24 hours, with a sensor that provides a 360-degree view of its surroundings for over 2,000 nautical miles.

Triton operates from "five land-based sites worldwide as a part of a family of maritime patrol and reconnaissance systems," according to the United States Government Accountability Office. Designs on the drone started in 2008 and it had its first flight in 2013, before reaching Initial Operational Capability (IOC) last year.

The US Navy has ordered 68 of the aircraft, which had a reported total program cost of $12.7 billion. Australia is also spending $6.2 billion to acquire six of the aircraft.

A video from the US Navy shows the aircraft making its first flight:

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2019-06-20 12:11:00Z
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