US Has No Responsibility to Protect Saudi: Nancy Pelosi
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said her country has no responsibility to “protect and defend Saudi Arabia”.
“Absolutely not," Pelosi said when asked in an NPR interview on Friday whether she would support military action against Iran related to the September 14 attacks on the Saudi Aramco facilities.
She went on to make an apparent reference to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who enjoys close ties to US President Donald Trump and is also believed by US intelligence officials to be implicated in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of his.
“Please,” Pelosi said. “They’re sitting across from the person who chopped up a reporter and dissolved his remains in chemicals, and he’s sitting across the chair from the person suspected of leaving that. I don’t see any responsibility for us to protect and defend Saudi Arabia.”
“What agreement is that a part of?”
Pelosi’s comments come as the Trump administration, led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has tried to build international support for retaliation against Iran, which has strongly denied responsibility for the attacks that crippled Saudi oil output and set global oil prices upward.
Pelosi, however, suggested that the US would be ill-served by intervening militarily on behalf of the Saudis. She, along with most Democrats, have been highly critical of Trump’s decision last year to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the former US president, Barack Obama, and five US allies. That agreement was opposed by the Saudis, who feared it would legitimize and economically strengthen their regional rival in the Middle East.
Pelosi said she was skeptical Trump would move beyond financial sanctions. “I don’t think the president wants a strike in Iran,” she said. “He knows there’s no appetite in our country to go to war.”
The Yemeni forces on September 14 launched drone attacks on two plants at the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry, including the world's biggest petroleum processing facility.
The attacks came in retaliation for the Saudi-led coalition’s continued aggression on the Arabian Peninsula country.
Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.