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Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Congress: Cooperation and Opposition Since 9/11 Sha'ban, 1440 - April 2019

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Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Congress: Cooperation and Opposition Since 9/11 Sha'ban, 1440 - April 2019 44 Dirasat Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Congress: Cooperation and Opposition since 9/11 Sha'ban, 1440 - April 2019 Andrew Leber Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Congress: Cooperation and Opposition since 9/11 Andrew Leber 4 Dirasat No. 44 Sha'ban, 1440 - April 2019 © King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, 2019 King Fahd National Library Cataloging-In-Publication Data Leber, Andrew Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Congress: Cooperation and Oppositions since 9/11. / Leber, Andrew - Riyadh , 2019 32 p ; 23 x 16.5 cm . ISBN: 978-603-8268-14-8 1- Saudi Arabia - Foreign relations - United States I - Title 327.531073 dc 1440/9036 L.D. no. 1440/9036 ISBN: 978-603-8268-14-8 Table of Contents Abstract 6 Introduction 7 Polarization and Policy Making in the United States 8 Saudi Arabia and Congress: 9/11 until Khashoggi 12 9/11 and Its Aftermath 13 The Justice Against the Sponsors of Terrorism Act and the Yemen War (2015–2016) 16 Trump and Saudi Arabia: Before Khashoggi 18 Khashoggi and a Polarized Congress 22 Khashoggi’s Death: Solidifying the Resistance 22 The Trump Administration: Unable or Unwilling to Lobby 24 Conclusion: Congressional Resistance as Permanent Strain 26 Bibliography 29 5 6 Dirasat No. 44 Sha'ban, 1440 - April 2019 Abstract This Dirasat seeks to understand the present opposition in Congress and especially the Senate. First, it explains the indirect role that Congress can play in U.S. foreign policy, while highlighting the potential role of partisan polarization in U.S. foreign policy. Next, it provides context for the U.S.-Saudi relationship in Congress by examining past congressional actions with respect to the Kingdom. Finally, it examines congressional activity since the death of Jamal Khashoggi, focusing in particular on the coalition of senators that has formed to advance legislation critical of the Kingdom. Introduction Criticism of Saudi Arabia from within the U.S. Congress has reached its highest levels since at least the months following the 9/11 terror attacks, with an entrenched, bipartisan coalition in the Senate forming the most powerful opposition the Kingdom has faced in some time. This opposition has been driven by a combination of growing partisanship among U.S. policy makers, bipartisan concerns over the conduct of the Saudi-led intervention in the Yemen War, and reactions to the death of Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last year. Within Saudi Arabia, the opposition of Congress (and particularly the Senate) has often been met by commentary lecturing U.S. representatives on how criticism ignores the strategic interests shared by both countries. After the Senate first passed legislation that would restrict American involvement in the Yemen War, for example, Okaz commentator Jamil al-Dhiyabi accused the Senate of “appointing itself judge and jury to insult the Kingdom and its leaders with baseless allegations.”(1) In terms of explaining opposition, there has been a tendency to focus on the American left in general (and the influence of President Barack Obama), as well as particular senators (such as Lindsey Graham) being “bought off.” as an explanation for the current situation.(2) This Dirasat seeks to understand the present opposition in Congress and especially the Senate. First, it explains the indirect role that Congress can play in U.S. foreign policy, while highlighting the potential role of partisan polarization in U.S. foreign policy. Next, it provides context for the U.S.-Saudi relationship in Congress by examining past congressional actions with respect to the Kingdom. Finally, it examines congressional activity since the death of (1) Jamil Dhiyabi, “La’at al-Riyadh.. wa <<tadakhulat>> al-Kunghris” [Riyadh’s rebuttals . and Congress’s interference], Okaz, December 19, 2018, https://www.okaz.com.sa/article/1693590. (2) Ali al-Fay‘a, “Al-Farraj li-Okaz: Obama sabab <<infilat al-yasar>>.. wa <<ikhwanj al- mamlaka>> d‘amuhum <<al-Hamadayn>>” [Al-Farraj to Okaz: Obama is the cause of the Left’s overreach.. and the brotherhood of the Kingdom is supported by the Two Hmads],” Okaz, January 5, 2019, https://www.okaz.com.sa/article/1697031; Ahmed al-Farraj, “Hata enta ya Senator Graham?” [Et tu, Senator Graham?], Al-Jazirah, December 13, 2018, http://www.al-jazirah. com/2018/20181213/ln18.htm. 7 8 Dirasat No. 44 Sha'ban, 1440 - April 2019 Jamal Khashoggi, focusing in particular on the coalition of senators that has formed to advance legislation critical of the Kingdom. Polarization and Policy Making in the United States While the president and his administration remain the most important actors in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, Congress plays a considerable, though often indirect, role as well. Political scientists Ralph Carter and James Scott, for example, speak of foreign policy “entrepreneurs,” or “members of Congress who take the initiative on the foreign policy issues about which they care rather than [awaiting] administration action.”(3) Actions of particular congresspersons (particularly senators) can structure foreign relations in subtle but far-reaching ways. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), for example, has championed a series of legislative amendments. known as the “Leahy Laws,” that impose restrictions on U.S. support to foreign security forces that have committed gross violations of human rights. Congress is rarely able to publicly override a stated foreign policy of the presidency—the congressional imposition of sanctions on South Africa in the 1980s over the veto of President Ronald Reagan stands as a rare exception. Still, congressional activity from direct legislation to oversight investigations can incentivize action by drawing public attention to particular issues or posing a challenge to presidents’ other legislative priorities. Until this year, for example, Congress has never successfully passed War Powers legislation rendering the president’s use of force abroad unsuccessful, yet the threat of doing so has allowed congressional representatives to bargain with the president over the course of policy making. Recent debates have questioned whether growing partisanship in domestic politics threatens to affect U.S. foreign policy. Voters (Figure 1) and (3) Ralph G. Carter and James M. Scott, “Understanding Congressional Foreign Policy Innovators: Mapping Entrepreneurs and Their Strategies,” Social Science Journal 47, no. 2 (2010): 420. Figure 1: Distribution of Democrats and Republicans on a 10-item scale of political values. Source: Pew Charitable Trusts, “2014 Political Polarization in the American Public.” Ideological consistency based on a scale of 10 political values questions from Pew polling. The blue area in this chart represents the ideological distribution of Democrats; the red area, that of Republicans. The overlap of these two distributions is shaded purple. Republicans include Republican-leaning independents; Democrats include Democratic-leaning independents. Figure 2: DW-NOMINATE scores for partisan polarization, members of the U.S. Senate, 1969–2019. Source: Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll-Call Voting (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Most recent DW-NOMINATE scores available at www.voteview.com. congressional representatives (Figure 2) have exhibited a growing partisan gap for decades. In Congress, the Republican Party has polarized further and faster on a range of issues, whereas only recently (since around 2008) has the Democratic Party witnessed a marked shift, which has been toward the left. 9 10 Dirasat No. 44 Sha'ban, 1440 - April 2019 DW-NOMINATE scores, used to track congressional representatives’ political ideology, suggest that any ideological overlap between members of both parties more or less came to an end by the early 1990s—in other words, in the Congress, the most liberal Republican was markedly more conservative than the most conservative Democrat. Some commentators argue that the origins of the shift lie in the fall of the Soviet Union, which removed the last major external force promoting a bipartisan U.S. consensus on a range of issues.(4) Until recently, however, the dominant understanding was that “politics stops at the water’s edge”—that politicians would set aside partisan differences in securing the national interest. Stephen Chaudoin, Helen Milner, and Dustin Tingley, finding that most foreign policy legislation in the House continued to be a bipartisan affair through 2010, argued that “the global nature of most problems facing the United States increases pressure for sustained, broad political support for international engagement.”(5) Others have pointed to a more deep-seated (and growing) polarization over foreign policy in the electorate as well as Congress. Deeply held partisan differences could translate into different citizen views on foreign policy— conservatives favoring the use of military force over diplomacy, for example, or liberals arguing that human rights and humanitarian crises merit more U.S. attention.(6) Looking within the Senate, Gyung-Ho Jeong and Paul J. Quirk found at least some evidence that this partisanship has translated into voting on foreign policy; by their measures, foreign policy polarization has grown steadily since the end of the Cold War, and especially since the 2003 invasion (4) Aziz Rana, “Goodbye, Cold War,” n+1 30 (Winter 2018), https://nplusonemag.com/issue-30/ politics/goodbye-cold-war/. Source: Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, Congress: A Political- Economic History of Roll-Call Voting (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Most recent DW-NOMINATE
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