RASA News Agency

RNA – Democratic Party lawmakers only began criticizing the Saudi war against Yemen after the murder of US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com.

“The Democrats have seized on the situation in Yemen and they see this as a weapon that they can use against the Trump administration for political purposes,” Preston told Press TV on Sunday.

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi says President Donald Trump is “turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s continued violence” against innocent Yemenis. 

Pelosi, the highest ranking Democrat in Congress, made the remarks in a statement she released on Twitter Saturday a day after Trump approved a plan to deploy troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

She described Trump’s decision as an “outrageous attempt” to circumvent the will of the Congress.

“Americans are weary of war, and have no interest in entering another Middle East conflict,” Pelosi reiterated, “particularly on behalf of Saudi Arabia.”

Pointing to Saudi Arabia’s “continued assault on countless men, women and children,” Pelosi slammed the president for “turning a blind eye” to the “continued violence against innocent Yemenis.

Preston rejected Pelosi’s comments as insincere, saying her remarks are a “cynical political ploy” to hurt Trump’s re-election campaign.

“The goal of the Democrats is regrettably not to end the Saudi war in Yemen, the goal is simply to score partisan points when it comes to their own conflicts with the Republicans and the Trump presidency,” he added.

The Pentagon announced Friday it would send reinforcements to the region to bolster Riyadh’s air defenses following a recent drone attack on two major oil facilities owned by Saudi state oil giant Aramco.

The decision was made at the request of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to the US Defense Department.

The Pentagon said the deployment would involve a moderate number of troops for what it called primarily “defensive in nature.”

The new decision comes after Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah fighters conducted strikes on the two facilities located in Abqaiq and Khurais on September 14. The attacks led to a halt in about 50 percent of the Arab kingdom’s crude and gas production, causing a surge in oil prices.

Tehran has fiercely rejected any involvement in the retaliatory attack by Yemeni forces against Saudi oil facilities and warned Washington that any military action against it will spell into an “all-out war” with immediate retaliation.