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
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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 <
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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.
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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 scores available at, with data from Source: www.voteview.com. (5) Stephen Chaudoin, Helen V. Milner, and Dustin H. Tingley, “The Center Still Holds: Liberal Internationalism Survives,” International Security 35, no. 1 (2010): 94. (6) Peter Gries, The Politics of American Foreign Policy: How Ideology Divides Liberals and Conservatives over Foreign Affairs (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2014). of Iraq.(7) There are now relatively few Republicans, like Rand Paul (R-KY), who are willing to defy their party in voting against U.S. military activity abroad, for example, or liberal “hawks,” like former Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), who repeatedly backed military intervention during his time in office. These partisan divides have taken on a renewed importance in the days before the 2020 presidential election, as academics, analysts, and activists contend with President Donald Trump’s skepticism toward traditional Western allies, close personal relationship with nondemocratic leaders, and open attacks on the postwar expansion of free trade. In advancing the principles of a “progressive” (i.e., leftist) foreign policy, historian Daniel Bessner has urged an approach to security and diplomacy that centers on several key features: a commitment to democracy, accountability for U.S. foreign policy officials, military restraint and force reductions, and a renewed commitment to international cooperation.(8) Others have taken up his challenge for a productive conversation on the need for a “foreign policy of the left,” from emphasizing the ability of the United States to ensure peace and prosperity at home to promoting productive engagement abroad and calling for a recommitment to pre-Trump centrism.(9) These debates matter for Saudi Arabia because the Kingdom presents a clear target for partisan commentators and politicians on the American left as they seek to promote a new U.S. foreign policy centered around human rights, the protection of democracy, and the promotion of the rule of law. “As
(7) Gyung-Ho Jeong and Paul J. Quirk, “Division at the Water’s Edge: The Polarization of Foreign Policy,” American Politics Research 47, no. 1 (2019): 58–87. (8) Daniel Bessner, “What Does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Think about the South China Sea?” New York Times, September 17, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/opinion/democratic- party-cortez-foreign-policy.html. (9) Daniel Nexon, “Toward a Neo-Progressive Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, September 4, 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2018-09-04/toward-neo-progressive- foreign-policy; Ben Rhodes and Jake Sullivan, “How to Check Trump and Repair America’s Image,” New York Times, November 25, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/25/opinion/a- chance-to-repair-americas-image-abroad.html.
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progressives work to define what a fair and just foreign policy should look like, the spotlight on Saudi Arabia provides an answer,” wrote researcher Evan Hill for Buzzfeed, while Bessner argued that “left-wing foreign-policy makers should pressure allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel to stop committing human rights abuses.”(10)
Saudi Arabia and Congress: 9/11 until Khashoggi Historically, Saudi Arabia has been insulated from partisan or ideological criticism due to close management of the “special relationship” with the United States at the executive level, as Bruce Riedel’s recent account attests.(11) Occasional congressional challenges to this relationship were once largely confined to efforts to restrict the Kingdom’s access to U.S. military technology, primarily out of concern for Israel’s security. Princes Turki Al Faisal and Bandar bin Sultan, along with other Saudi officials, had to engage in extensive lobbying on Capitol Hill back in the 1970s and 1980s to secure the votes needed for weapons purchases, such as the F15 fighter jet and airborne warning and control system (AWACS) radar surveillance technology.(12) In doing so, however, they could count on a supportive administration willing and able to help the Kingdom make its case to skeptical policy makers; this may no longer be the case. This section will look at the Kingdom’s more recent experiences with Congress, beginning with the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks (refer to Figure 3 throughout). Three main themes stand out: efforts by some legislators to
(10) Evan Hill, “Our Special Relationship with Saudi Arabia Needs to End,” Buzzfeed, October 12, 2018, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/evanhill/end-special-relationship-with-saudi-arabia- khashoggi. (11) Bruce Riedel, Kings and Presidents: Saudi Arabia and the United States since FDR (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2017). (12) Richard Harwood and Ward Sinclair, “Lobbying for Warplane Brings Saudis Out of Isolation,” Washington Post, May 7, 1978; Patrick E. Tyler, “Double Exposure: Saudi Arabia’s Man in Washington,” New York Times, June 7, 1992. Figure 3: Major congressional legislation and actions regarding Saudi Arabia (excludes bills with no cosponsors). Source: Congress.gov legislation database. Data file of relevant legislation available upon request. restrict Saudi Arabia’s access to U.S. visas and military technology after 9/11, the passage of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act in 2016 over President Obama’s veto, and the start of bipartisan efforts to reign in the U.S. role in the Yemen War.
9/11 and Its Aftermath The Kingdom’s relationship with the United States was shaken by the revelation that 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon were from Saudi Arabia. Public opinion of Saudi Arabia fell from about 50% favorability to around 30–40% for the rest of the decade (Figure 4). While the 9/11 Commission Report would clear the Saudi government of direct involvement, public and congressional attention prompted new restrictions on Saudi travel to the United States and efforts to restrict U.S. military support to Saudi Arabia. Criticism of Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of 9/11 was fairly bipartisan, with Republicans as well as Democrats criticizing the Kingdom’s deeply conservative social and religious policies (as well as lax oversight of illicit financial flows) for playing a role in fomenting extremism worldwide. The
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Country Favorabilities Gallup, 2001–2019
90.0% 80.0% 70.0% 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 30.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0% 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020
Saudi Arabia Israel Iran
Figure 4: Gallup Country Ratings excludes those without an opinion. Source: Gallup, 2019.
major legislation passed, however, was fairly limited. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 placed particular restrictions on the ability of Saudi nationals to expedite the U.S. visa process, while the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 called for restructuring U.S. intelligence and security cooperation with the Kingdom.(13) Legislation specifically targeting the Kingdom failed to make much headway. Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) spearheaded repeated efforts to cut off all military assistance to Saudi Arabia, both through direct legislation (various iterations of the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act) and through amendments to key budget bills for the Department of Defense and the Department of State. However, once Representative Weiner’s amendments passed the House, each time with bipartisan majorities, negotiations with the Senate over the final form of legislation watered down restrictions to allow the George W. Bush administration to grant a waiver based on national security concerns—which it did every year.(14) Still, this likely placed some pressure on the Bush administration to keep a close eye on the relationship and encourage new policies on counterterrorism and money laundering within the Kingdom.
(13) Alfred Prados, “Saudi Arabia: Current Issues and U.S. Relations,” CRS Reports, April 28, 2005. (14) Christopher Blanchard, “Saudi Arabia: Background and U.S. Relations,” CRS Reports, June 14, 2010. Prior to the Khashoggi incident, legislative activity regarding the Kingdom reached its highest point during the final two years of the George W. Bush administration, when Democratic control of both the House and Senate resulted in increased congressional challenges to any number of administration priorities. This included, for the first time since 9/11, legislation addressing the human rights situation within Saudi Arabia as well as the Kingdom’s ability to access nuclear technology. Still, no legislation directly critical of Saudi Arabia passed Congress during this time. This pattern largely continued during the first six years of the Barack Obama administration. Regardless of President Obama’s foreign policy stances regarding the Kingdom and the Gulf in general, members of Congress mounted no legislative attacks on these positions, even after Republicans secured control of the House and, eventually, the Senate. Congressional opposition to the Iran deal was the major exception to this, although more due to Republican support for Israel than out of solidarity with the Kingdom. A GOP effort to derail the Iran deal (not included in Figure 3) ultimately failed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, which would have required 60 votes. The effort to halt the Iran deal demonstrated that the intense partisanship of the Obama era could affect U.S. foreign as well as domestic policy. All Republican senators and four Democratic senators voted against the deal, although due to the way the administration framed the agreement this was not enough to halt the deal. Yet the relationship with Saudi Arabia remained apart from this polarization, with the U.S. foreign policy establishment largely in agreement that the Kingdom and the United States shared clear interests, if not values.(15) Even into 2016, prominent commentators ranging from George W. Bush–era officials to neutral academics and left-leaning think tank scholars
(15) See the views presented in “Room for Debate: The Threat and Value of Saudi Arabia,” New York Times, August 21, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/08/21/the-threat-and- value-of-saudi-arabia.
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emphasized the need for U.S. policymakers to continue investing in the security partnership between the two countries, regardless of “surface tensions” with the Obama administration.(16)
The Justice Against the Sponsors of Terrorism Act and the Yemen War (2015–2016) Legislation critical of the Kingdom appeared in the final years of President Obama’s term in office, including bipartisan legislation regarding the Kingdom’s connections to terrorist activity as well as within-party challenges to the president’s support for the Saudi-led coalition’s military efforts in Yemen. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) in September of 2015. The legislation proposed stripping sovereign immunity from any country suspected of having supported aided an attack on U.S. soil, and thus assisting the efforts of 9/11 victims and their families in their efforts to sue the government of Saudi Arabia over alleged involvement in the attacks. This would override the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), which severely limited the ability of sovereign states to be sued in U.S. courts. The Obama administration lobbied hard to keep the act from advancing, incurring the anger of 9/11 victims and families in doing so, while U.S. press coverage highlighted the extensive efforts of the Saudi government to sway opinion on the legislation.(17) Even the New York Times and Washington Post editorial boards weighed in against the legislation,
(16) Bernard Haykel and Steffen Hertog, “Better the Saudis We Know,” New York Times, April 22, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/opinion/better-the-saudis-we-know.html; Brian Katulis, Rudy deLeon, Peter Juul, Mokhtar Awad, and John Craig, “Updating U.S.-Saudi Ties to Reflect the New Realities of Today’s Middle East,” Center for American Progress, April 25, 2016, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/2016/04/25/136339/updating-u- s-saudi-ties-to-reflect-the-new-realities-of-todays-middle-east/. (17) Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “Fight between Saudis and 9/11 Families Escalates in Washington,” New York Times, September 21, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/us/politics/9-11-saudi- bill-veto-obama.html. reminding readers that the 9/11 commission report found “no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials financed the [9/11] terrorists” and that the Kingdom remained “a partner in combating terrorism.”(18) Ultimately, JASTA passed by a resounding 98-1 margin in the Senate and 344-77 in the House, despite a veto by the Obama administration. Notably, most of the opposition to the act in the House came from Democrats (59 of the 77 opposed), with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV, retiring that year) casting the lone vote against the act in the Senate. The Obama administration tried to soften the blow slightly by working to get a Senate vote on the sale of M1A1/A2 Abrams tanks to Saudi Arabia scheduled for the same day, and Democratic senators split their votes on this subject to approve the deal with a bipartisan 71 votes. The passage of JASTA indicates both the strength of the U.S.-Saudi alliance and its limitations in the face of U.S. public pressure. Until the House and Senate invoked the War Powers Act in 2019, JASTA was the sole piece of legislation directly targeting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to pass Congress in the post- 9/11 era. Yet in an election year, very few members of Congress were willing to confront public opinion by standing against its passage. Likewise, the inability of the Kingdom’s public relations campaign to shift many votes demonstrated that it remained vulnerable to U.S. public opinion. Saudi lobbying proved far more effective at convincing political leaders of the value of the relationship than “building public understanding and sympathy among Americans,” as former ambassador Charles W. “Chas” Freeman, Jr., advised in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.(19)
(18) “The Risks of Suing the Saudis for 9/11,” New York Times, September 28, 2016, https://www. nytimes.com/2016/09/28/opinion/the-risks-of-suing-the-saudis-for-9-11.html; Editorial Board, “Should We Let 9/11 Victims Sue Saudi Arabia? Not So Fast” (Opinion), Washington Post, September 15, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/should-we-let-911-victims-sue- saudi-arabia-not-so-fast/2016/09/15/f0067338-791f-11e6-bd86-b7bbd53d2b5d_story.html?utm_ term=.1edfe46da728. (19) Chas Freeman, “Saudi Arabia’s Foreign and Domestic Dilemmas,” Middle East Policy Council Speech, 2002, https://www.mepc.org/speeches/saudi-arabias-foreign-and-domestic-dilemmas.
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While JASTA was able to catch the public eye by tapping into longstanding popular associations of Saudi Arabia with 9/11, in 2016 relatively few Americans were focused on U.S. involvement in the Yemen War. Nevertheless, congressional activity by some representators and senators represented the groups within the two parties that would eventually bring about action on this front—a progressive wing within the Democratic Party that sought to limit U.S. violations of human rights abroad, and an isolationist or “constitutionalist” faction within the Republican Party that views U.S. military involvement abroad as an unnecessary overextension of American resources. Both were willing to champion a more activist view of Congress’s role in foreign policy making. Initial actions were relatively small, with bills cosponsored by conservative “strict constitutionalists” like Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY) as well as liberal firebrands like the young Chris Murphy (D-CT). These efforts— such as an attempt to ban the sale of cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia in the House—were supported far more heavily by Democratic representatives in both houses, yet included a small but committed group of Republican supporters as well. Under the Trump administration, and especially in the aftermath of the death of Jamal Khashoggi, opposition to Saudi Arabia’s policies would mainly be driven by greater unity within the Democratic Party regarding pursuit of a “progressive” foreign policy as well as a deepening division within the Republican Party over how best to manage the U.S.-Saudi relationship.
Trump and Saudi Arabia: Before Khashoggi During the initial years of the Trump administration, congressional activity regarding Saudi Arabia slowly gathered steam. This activity was spurred on by a combination of suspicions about the close ties between the administration and the Saudi government, on the one hand, and growing popular concern about the conduct of the war in Yemen, on the other. Prominent commentators on the left grew more comfortable criticizing the conduct both of the Kingdom and of the administration’s relationship with the Kingdom, with some support for this position from more centrist figures. Public and hence elite attention toward the Trump administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia largely began with the president’s visit to the Kingdom in May 2017, his first visit abroad. While most observers noted that the visit was a diplomatic coup for Saudi Arabia, they also questioned President Trump’s sharp change in rhetoric regarding the Kingdom: from threatening to “stop buying oil from the Saudis” to praising the Kingdom’s reform efforts under the Vision 2030 plan.(20) By 2018, a growing narrative in the United States asserted that President Trump had offered a “blank check” to Saudi Arabia’s government at home and abroad in exchange for investment in the United States, the purchases of U.S. weapons, and cooperation on the administration’s policies toward Israel (there were also suggestions of personal business ties between Trump and the Kingdom).(21) The anticorruption campaign and the standoff over the whereabouts of Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri in November 2017, as the ongoing war in Yemen, were cited as key examples of Saudi overreach, even by centrist and left-of-center commentators who had previously defended the importance of U.S.-Saudi security cooperation.(22) Still, President Trump’s vocal support for the Kingdom likely helped improve the Kingdom’s image at home. The country’s favorability rating in February of 2018 was around 43%, among the highest recorded values since before the 9/11
(20) Compare the remarks in “Donald Trump Expounds on His Foreign Policy Views” (Transcript), New York Times, March 26, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/us/politics/donald- trump-transcript.html; and Donald Trump, “President Trump’s Speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit,” May 21, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president- trumps-speech-arab-islamic-american-summit/. (21) Carolyn Kenney and John Norris, “Trump’s Conflicts of Interest in Saudi Arabia,” Center for American Progress, June 14, 2017, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/ news/2017/06/14/433956/trumps-conflicts-interest-saudi-arabia/. (22) Daniel Benaim and Brian Katulis, “Trump’s Blank Check for Saudi Arabia,” New Republic, November 8, 2017, https://newrepublic.com/article/145728/trumps-blank-check-saudi-arabia; Aaron David Miller and David Sokolsky, “What Is Trump Getting for Sucking Up to Saudi Arabia?” Politico, August 29, 2018, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/29/ trump-mbs-saudi-arabia-yemen-middle-east-foreign-policy-219617.
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attacks (see Figure 4). Circumstantial evidence suggests that this shift occurred by polarizing existing public opinion, however—the U.S. public’s view of Saudi Arabia mainly improved among Republicans from March of 2017 to March 2018, according to Harvard-Harris Poll numbers.(23) Even prior to the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the Kingdom’s standing within Congress was marked by the slow erosion of support among hawkish “national security” Democrats and the growing strength of the isolationist wing of Republican Senators. More conservative Democratic Senators focused on national security, like Bill Nelson (D-FL), Jack Reed (D-RI), and Bob Menendez (D-NJ), initially prioritized support for the war in Yemen and united opposition to Iran over any domestic political pressure to criticize the administration’s policies toward Saudi Arabia—opposing efforts to advance War Powers legislation in March of 2018. Yet the isolationist wing of the Republican Party continued to find its voice on the Yemen issue, with Senators Steve Daines (R-MT) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) supporting the same piece of legislation (Table 1). Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had to promise that Congress would hold additional hearings scrutinizing the war in Yemen to forestall outright congressional objections in early 2018. During these hearings, Trump administration officials acknowledged that congressional pressure had in turn encouraged it press the Saudi-led coalition on civilian casualties and the humanitarian situation Yemen.(24) Additionally, when Congress passed its annual bill on U.S. defense spending it included language requiring the Trump administration to certify by mid-September that the coalition was taking every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties in the conflict.
(23) March 2017 and March 2018 surveys, the Harvard-Harris Poll. https://harvardharrispoll.com/ (24) “Congress and the War in Yemen: Oversight and Legislation 2015–2019,” CRS Reports, September 21, 2018, pp. 9–10. Media and the Yemen War Print Coverage, 4/2017–3/2019
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
Figure 5: Articles per month on the Yemen War from the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, BBC, CNN. Source: Factiva.
In the months prior to Khashoggi’s death, however, increasing U.S. media attention on the Yemen conflict further sharpened these divides (see Figure 5). In addition to concerns over coalition efforts to retake the port of Hudaydah, an August air strike that hit a bus and killed dozens of school children in Sa’adah sparked considerable outrage within Congress as well as a CNN investigation that explained clearly to American audiences that U.S. munitions were being used in airstrikes across Yemen.(25) By this time, Bob Menendez (D-NJ) had already grown skeptical of the war, exercising powers within the Foreign Relations Committee to hold up some arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) unilaterally.(26) Press coverage peaked around the March 2018 effort to pass a version of the War Powers resolution in the Senate, yet remained elevated compared to the previous year.
(25) Nima Salma Abdelaziz Elbagir, Ryan Browne, Barbara Arvanitidis, and Laura Smith-Spark, “Bomb That Killed 40 Children in Yemen Was Supplied by the US,” CNN, August 17, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/middleeast/us-saudi-yemen-bus-strike-intl/index.html. (26) Patricia Zengerle, “U.S. Lawmaker Holds Back Support for Munitions Sale to Gulf Allies Due to Yemen,” June 28, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-arms-yemen/u-s-lawmaker- holds-back-support-for-munitions-sale-to-gulf-allies-due-to-yemen-idUSKBN1JO2HA.
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Khashoggi and a Polarized Congress Without going into detail about the Khashoggi incident, the revelations surrounding his death decisively shifted congressional views of Saudi Arabia, turning criticism of the Kingdom into a unified partisan issue for Democrats and sharpening the divide between isolationist and moderate Republicans and the majority of “loyalist” Republicans in Congress. Additionally, congressional reaction to Khashoggi’s death brought renewed focus to conduct of the war in Yemen and human rights concerns inside the Kingdom. Rather than covering every aspect of the reaction to Khashoggi, this section will focus on two key developments—the crystallization of a bipartisan coalition willing to defy the President in criticizing the Kingdom, and the failure of the President and his administration to effectively lobby either Congress or the American public on this issue.
Khashoggi’s Death: Solidifying the Resistance Much coverage of Republican opposition to President Trump over Saudi Arabia has focused on Senator Lindsey Graham’s inflammatory remarks regarding Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. However, Senator Graham has yet to actually vote against the Kingdom on anything other than a symbolic resolution accusing the Crown Prince of involvement in Khashoggi’s death. Instead, Republican opposition has mainly come from slowly yet steadily expanding the coalition of Senators concerned with President Trump’s approach to foreign policy and U.S. overreach in general—a stark contrast to Graham’s expansionist and hawkish views. The evolution of this faction, as well as the hawkish “national security” Democratic faction, can be seen in Table 1. With each vote on War Powers legislation regarding the Yemen conflict, the coalition of isolationist and moderate Republicans has expanded. The December vote, which passed the act through the Senate for the first time (56-41), picked up a vote from Susan Yemen Bill Yemen Bill Yemen Bill Prevent Tank Sales Prevent Arms Sales (First Vote) (Second Vote) (Third Vote) (9/2016) (6/2017) (3/2018) (12/2018) (3/2019) Lee Support Support Support Support Support Paul Support Support Support Support Support Moran Oppose Oppose Support Support Support Daines Oppose Oppose Support Support Support Young N/A Support Oppose Support Support Collins Oppose Oppose Oppose Support Support Murkowski Oppose Oppose Oppose Oppose Support Menendez Oppose Support Oppose Support Support Reed Oppose Support Oppose Support Support Manchin Oppose Oppose Oppose Support Support Whitehouse Oppose Support Oppose Support Support Jones N/A N/A Oppose Support Support Table 1: Foreign policy factions among Republican Senators (“Isolationists” and “Moderates”) and Democratic Senators (“Hawks”). Source: Congress.gov, records for S.J. Res. 39 (114th Congress, “Prevent Tank Sales”), S.J. Res. 42 (115th Congress, “Prevent Arms Sales”), S.J. Res. 54 (115th Congress, “Yemen Bill”).
Collins (R-ME), one of only two current Senators willing to occasionally break with the President on domestic policy; the third Senate vote on legislation this March (54-46) picked up the other, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). Democrats in the Senate, as well as almost all in the House, now vote cleanly along party lines when it comes to curtailing U.S. involvement in the Yemen War, and this will likely be true of much other Saudi-related legislation in the future. As many commentators have noted, this legislation still faces a high hurdle to clear—unlike JASTA, the War Powers legislation lacks the super- majority needed to override a presidential veto. Still, given that this legislation has passed the Democratic-controlled House several times now, it places the Kingdom and the coalition’s war in Yemen in a somewhat precarious position should the presidency change hands, or should conditions on the ground in Yemen dramatically worsen. As Figure 5 notes, since news of Khashoggi the war has attracted a dramatically higher level of press coverage in the West, with a corresponding increase in Google searches focusing on the war. Additionally, a poll conducted in November of 2018 found that Americans were broadly against U.S. involvement in the conflict.
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The Trump Administration: Unable or Unwilling to Lobby Against mounting opposition in Congress, the Trump administration has chosen to dig in and rally its partisan supporters around the issue rather than meaningfully engage with lawmakers or take the president’s case to the American public. This has served to further deepen, rather than alleviate, the partisan and within-party divides that have coalesced around the U.S.- Saudi position. The Trump administration made its most forceful defense of the Kingdom in a press release issued from the White House on November 20 of last year. Reminding readers that “The world is a very dangerous place!” the president argued that the Kingdom needed to continue fighting Iran in Yemen, that the Kingdom provided the United States with considerable business in the form of arms purchases, and that the security relationship came first, regardless of what might have happened with respect to Khashoggi.(27) This position aligned closely with conservative commentary that defended the Kingdom at length, particularly from Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute and Tony Badran of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.(28) Polling from around this time suggests that the president’s appeal did not connect with the American public—and may have even backfired among Republican voters. By early December, fewer Republicans were satisfied by the Trump administration’s response to the Kingdom than had been in late October. The October Harvard-Harris poll and a CNN/SSRS poll fielded in early December contained nearly identical questions about whether the president response had been “tough enough” on the Kingdom:
(27) Donald Trump, “Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia,” White House Statements and Releases, November 20, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/ briefings-statements/statement-president-donald-j-trump-standing-saudi-arabia/. (28) Michael Doran and Tony Badran, “Trump Is Crude. But He’s Right about Saudi Arabia,” New York Times, November 21, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/opinion/trump-saudi- arabia-khashoggi.html; Tony Badran and Michael Dorean, “Why the Saudis Despised Jamal Khashoggi,” New York Post, October 18, 2018, https://nypost.com/2018/10/18/why-the-saudis- despised-jamal-khashoggi/. Percent Who Say the U.S. Response to Saudi Present Who Say the U.S.Arabia Response Is to Saudi Arabia Is “Not“Not Tough Tough Enough” Enough”
100
80
60
40
20
0 Overall Democrat Independent Republican
October 26-28 (Harvard/Harris) December 6-9 (CNN/SSRI)
Figure 6: Percentage of respondents urging a tougher U.S. stance concerning Khashoggi. The other possible responses were “too much” or “just right,” or respondents might fail or refuse to reply.
Harvard/Harris (Oct. 26–28): Do you think President Trump has been too soft, too tough, or about right in his response to Jamal Khashoggi’s murder by Saudi Arabian intelligence officers? CNN/SSRS (Dec. 6–9): Based on what you have heard or read, do you think the U.S. response to Saudi Arabia’s role in the murder of that journalist has been: too tough, not tough enough, or about right? These questions cannot tell us what people want, per se, but they are close enough to measure any shifts in whether people are satisfied with the administration’s response. By December, more Republicans wanted to see a tougher stance from the United States toward Saudi Arabia—even accounting for the margin of error involved in polling. A plurality of Republican respondents now backed a tougher stance, representing about 54% of those who expressed an opinion (some declined to answer the question).(29)
(29) The change is likely understated here, since the Harvard/Harris poll forced respondents to choose among the three answers—hence the 54% figure is a more apt comparison. Harvard-Harris poll, “October 2018: National Poll,” https://harvardharrispoll.com/; CNN/SSRS poll, December 6–9, 2018, http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/12/13/rel12d.-..khashoggi.pdf.
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The administration’s efforts to engage with lawmakers have mostly consisted of lecturing Congress about the importance of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. After President Trump’s statement, secretary of state Mike Pompeo published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal decrying the “the Capitol Hill caterwauling and media pile-on” surrounding the Khashoggi incident. In the view of one observer, this article seemed “almost designed to needlessly anger stakeholders that the Trump administration cannot afford to alienate.”(30) An unsuccessful attempt to prevent CIA director Gina Haspel from testifying before the Senate gave the impression that the administration was concealing knowledge of Khashoggi’s death, and that Pompeo and then-secretary of defense James Mattis were willfully misleading Congress.(31) Ultimately, these efforts did little to quell congressional unhappiness over the U.S.-Saudi relationship, as bipartisan legislation criticizing the relationship or attempting to impose new conditions has continued to advance.
Conclusion: Congressional Resistance as Permanent Strain Congressional skepticism toward Saudi Arabia and deep concerns about the Kingdom within the U.S. foreign policy establishment in general, are likely to be a structural constraint on the U.S.-Saudi relationship in the years to come. Yet it is important to understand that this resistance is not simply the result of growing partisanship or the Democratic Party’s criticism of President Trump—though each of these factors has played a role in the present state of legislation and congressional pressure in general. Instead, current criticisms coming from Congress and elsewhere stem from several interrelated causes:
(30) Daniel Drezner, “Mike Pompeo’s Faustian Bargain,” Washington Post, November 29, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/29/mike-pompeos-faustian-bargain/?utm_ term=.302e58805bfe. (31) Brian McKeon, “Neither U.S. Senators Nor Trump’s Team Is Lying about Khashoggi’s Killing,” Foreign Policy, December 14, 2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/14/neither-trumps-team- nor-u-s-senators-is-lying-about-khashoggis-killing/. • The articulation and championing of progressive and isolationist foreign policy stances by factions within the Democratic and Republican congressional delegations • Growing public awareness of, and concern over, the conduct of the war in Yemen and the humanitarian costs to the Yemeni population • Concern among some congressional representatives and U.S. foreign policy commentators about what they perceive as “erratic” Saudi behavior in its foreign policy in the region The death of the Jamal Khashoggi and the resulting public and media furor accelerated the importance of each of these trends in a number of ways: by providing a key action for foreign policy factions within each part to champion, by drawing renewed U.S. public and media attention to the war in Yemen, and by providing commentators and policy makers with what appeared to be yet another example of such “erratic” behavior. As Table 1 indicates, the most immediate impact of Khashoggi’s death was to unify the Democratic delegation in the Senate around this issue, as well as building up a robust subset of Republican Senate votes around the idea of restraining the U.S. role in the Yemen War. This bipartisan coalition is likely to be the source of further criticisms of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. This is a significant development for the Kingdom. While Americans continue to view the Kingdom more favorably than they do Iran, this is not enough to shield Saudi Arabia from criticism during periodic crises; indeed, maintaining the relationship has relied heavily in the past on a bipartisan consensus of “different values, shared interests” between the two countries. Yet as Figure 3 shows, congressional activity regarding Saudi Arabia reached levels last seen when President George W. Bush faced a unified opposition Congress in 2007–2008—and despite high levels of activity under the 110th Congress, no legislation directly affecting the Kingdom actually passed during those two years. The Senate and House passing War Powers legislation in
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an attempt to rein in presidential war-making powers is unprecedented in the history of presidential-congressional relations, and is surpassed only by the passage of JASTA in terms of legislation directly critical of the Kingdom. The U.S.-Saudi relationship will remain on thin ice so long as neither the Kingdom nor the Trump administration manages to successfully build public support within United States or appeal to opponents in Congress. Bibliography al-Farraj, Ahmed. “Hata enta ya Senator Graham?” [Et tu, Senator Graham?]. Al-Jazirah, December 13, 2018, http://www.al-jazirah. com/2018/20181213/ln18.htm. al-Fay‘a, Ali. “Al-Farraj li-Okaz: Obama sabab <
CNN/SSRS poll, December 6–9, 2018, http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/ images/12/13/rel12d.-..khashoggi.pdf. “Congress and the War in Yemen: Oversight and Legislation 2015–2019,” CRS Reports, September 21, 2018, pp. 9–10. Davis, Julie Hirschfeld. “Fight between Saudis and 9/11 Families Escalates in Washington.” New York Times, September 21, 2016, https:// www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/us/politics/9-11-saudi-bill-veto- obama.html. Dhiyabi, Jamil. “La’at al-Riyadh.. wa <
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foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/14/neither-trumps-team-nor-u-s- senators-is-lying-about-khashoggis-killing/. Miller, Aaron David, and David Sokolsky. “What Is Trump Getting for Sucking Up to Saudi Arabia?” Politico, August 29, 2018, https:// www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/29/trump-mbs-saudi- arabia-yemen-middle-east-foreign-policy-219617. Nexon, Daniel. “Toward a Neo-Progressive Foreign Policy.” Foreign Affairs, 4 (September 4, 2018), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ united-states/2018-09-04/toward-neo-progressive-foreign-policy. Prados, Alfred. “Saudi Arabia: Current Issues and U.S. Relations.” CRS Reports, April 28, 2005. Rana, Aziz. “Goodbye, Cold War.” n+1 30 (Winter 2018), https:// nplusonemag.com/issue-30/politics/goodbye-cold-war/. Rhodes, Ben, and Jake Sullivan. “How to Check Trump and Repair America’s Image.” New York Times, November 25, 2018, https:// www.nytimes.com/2018/11/25/opinion/a-chance-to-repair- americas-image-abroad.html . Riedel, Bruce. Kings and Presidents: Saudi Arabia and the United States since FDR (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2017). “Risks of Suing the Saudis for 9/11, The” New York Times, September 28, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/opinion/the-risks-of- suing-the-saudis-for-9-11.html. “Room for Debate: The Threat and Value of Saudi Arabia.” New York Times, August 21, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/ 2013/08/21/the-threat-and-value-of-saudi-arabia. “Should We Let 9/11 Victims Sue Saudi Arabia? Not So Fast.” Washington Post, September 15, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ opinions/should-we-let-911-victims-sue-saudi-arabia-not-so- fast/2016/09/15/f0067338-791f-11e6-bd86-b7bbd53d2b5d_story. html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d500ef2d1799. Trump, Donald. “President Trump’s Speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit,” May 21, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings- statements/president-trumps-speech-arab-islamic-american- summit/. Trump, Donald. “Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia.” White House Statements and Releases, November 20, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement- president-donald-j-trump-standing-saudi-arabia/. Tyler, Patrick E. “Double Exposure: Saudi Arabia’s Man in Washington.” New York Times, June 7, 1992. Zengerle, Patricia. “U.S. Lawmaker Holds Back Support for Munitions Sale to Gulf Allies Due to Yemen.” Reuters, June 28, 2018, https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-arms-yemen/u-s-lawmaker-holds- back-support-for-munitions-sale-to-gulf-allies-due-to-yemen- idUSKBN1JO2HA.
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About the Author
Andrew Leber is a PhD candidate at Harvard University's Department of Government. His dissertation research focuses on policymaking in Saudi Arabia, including the different ways the Saudi government has sought to develop local infrastructure and job opportunities through state spending and new regulations. Additionally, he studies public perceptions of Saudi Arabia within the United States. His writing has been featured in Foreign Affairs, Roads & Kingdoms, Al-Arabiyaand the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.
King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)
The KFCRIS is an independent non-governmental institution based in Riyadh, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Center was founded in 1403/1983 by the King Faisal Foundation (KFF) to preserve the legacy of the late King Faisal and to continue his mission of transmitting knowledge between the Kingdom and the world. The Center serves as a platform for research and Islamic Studies, bringing together researchers and research institutions from the Kingdom and across the world through conferences, workshops, and lectures, and through the production and publication of scholarly works, as well as the preservation of Islamic manuscripts. The Center’s Research Department is home to a group of established and promising researchers who endeavor to produce in-depth analyses in various fields, ranging from Contemporary Political Thought, Political Economy, and Arabic Language to Saudi Studies, Maghreb Studies, and Asian Studies. The Center also hosts the Library which preserves invaluable Islamic manuscripts, the Al-Faisal Museum for Arab Islamic Art, the Al-Faisal Institute for Human Resources Development, the Darat Al-Faisal, and the Al-Faisal Cultural Press, which issues the Al-Faisal magazine and other key intellectual periodicals. For more information, please visit the Center’s website: www.kfcris.com/en
P.O.Box 51049 Riyadh 11543 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Tel: (+966 11) 4652255 Ext: 6892 Fax: (+966 11) 4659993 E-mail: [email protected]