This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, August 10th, 2018. I'm Kiela Brown.

As the US helps Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen, the Associated Press

reports the U.S. has provided special benefits to al-Qaeda forces in the region.

How does the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia compromise American security interest?

Cato's John Glazer and Sahir Khan comment.

The United States, in alignment with the Mujahadeen were very interested in pushing the

Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. In Syria, the United States has been aligned and maybe not directly coordinating with, but definitely

aligned with Al Qaeda in some efforts there. And now we learn from the

Associated Press that the United States military and to be to be clear the

Pentagon has denied this but that the US military has bribed or paid Al Qaeda to advance

U.S. interests in Yemen.

So what are we to make of these most recent revelations from the Associated Press this

week?

Well it's of a piece with how rotten we've known the Saudi US alliance to be for a long time. Like you said these problems go

back a long way and just to put it in context you know Yemen the war in Yemen the

Saudis launched it because this Yemen opposition group, the Houthis, were battling

against the US and Saudi-backed dictatorship in Sauna. and at one point it eventually led to the Yemeni president Mansour-Hadi to flee the country.

And so the Saudi started bombing relentlessly

in retaliation and trying to re-establish

and reinstate that regime.

But at the same time, there was US and strategic sort of dynamics at play

because it happened at a time when the Saudis were really fearful of a US

...