Qatar and Bahrain today narrowly avoided the growing congressional backlash against US arms sales to the Gulf Arab states.

The Senate voted 57-42 against moving forward on a resolution blocking a $3 billion sale of 24 Apache attack helicopters to Qatar and 56-43 against a separate bid to stop a $750 million sale of air-to-air missiles for Bahrain.

Incensed by the Donald Trump administration’s attempt to circumvent a congressional hold on arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Democrats joined Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in his bid to force debate on the Qatar and Bahrain sales. Paul argued that the sales would exacerbate a Middle East arms race, citing Doha’s support for Islamist groups in Syria and Manama’s participation in the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

“The Middle East is a hot cauldron continuing and continually threatening to boil over,” Paul said on the Senate floor ahead of the votes. “I think it’s a mistake to funnel arms into these century-old conflicts. There is no great certainty that the arms we send to the Middle East aren’t one day used against our own soldiers.”