The News
Senators in both parties are open to the Biden administration’s elusive defense agreement with Saudi Arabia, despite long-standing concerns about its human rights record and a high bar to Senate approval.
Republicans and Democrats are demanding any such agreement arrive on Capitol Hill as a treaty, requiring a two-thirds majority. Getting that level of Senate approval would be a huge challenge, according to interviews with more than a half-dozen senators on the Foreign Relations Committee.
Any deal offering Riyadh security guarantees and other benefits in exchange for normalizing its relations with Israel as almost certainly a task for a future commander-in-chief, not President Joe Biden, given the late hour in his final year in office, senators said.
Still, their striking degree of openness to a future pact shows that either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump might take office next year with room to maneuver on the Middle East, despite Saudi Arabia’s checkered human rights record. On both sides of the aisle, senators are eager to reassert their role in foreign policy after the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran skirted the Senate’s treaty protocol. Nine years later, both parties see Saudi Arabia as a potential bulwark against Iranian aggression.
Any US-Saudi defense pact would effectively require an end to the Israel-Hamas war, in addition to normalization of relations with Israel, and forward movement toward a state in Palestine. If a future administration could meet those terms — the Biden administration has suggested a deal was close in recent months — senators are willing to consider an agreement that could eventually put Americans at risk but also formalize Washington’s longstanding alliance with Riyadh.
“It sounds like something that could conceivably commit the United States to war in the future. And that most certainly would have to come before the United States Senate for ratification,” Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind, told Semafor. Getting 67 senators to support such a treaty would “probably” be challenging, Young added, “but that’s not to suggest at all that it’s not achievable.”
The US-Saudi relationship has endured for more than 80 years, and Riyadh remains a stable trading partner in a volatile region. But senators would face a serious debate over approving any Saudi treaty, given the on-camera fury that many offered after the US blamed Riyadh for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Still, even some of Saudi Arabia’s harshest critics in the chamber are not ruling out giving airtime to a future treaty, so long as it’s written to maximize their input.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, seen as a potential secretary of state pick if Harris holds the White House for Democrats, signed a letter in the days before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that warned any future Saudi pact would require “a high degree of proof” that it benefits the US. Today, Murphy said he’s under “no illusion that it wouldn’t require a treaty debate in the Senate,” but also left his door open to such a debate.
“Count me as skeptical regarding the wisdom of giving a security guarantee to a repressive, autocratic regime in the Middle East. But I’ve said to the administration that I am still open to looking at the details of any agreement,” Murphy said. ”It doesn’t feel like I should be holding my breath over the course of the next two months.”
Across the aisle, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gave voice to the contingent of senators who maintain good relationships with the Saudis.
“I meet with them relatively regularly,” Risch said, adding: “Obviously, they’re a different country than us,” but that they remain “a valid and important ally in the region.”
The State Department did not comment on the possible future structure of any US-Saudi pact.
Know More
Faced with a similarly tricky situation in 2015, the Obama administration did not seek to enshrine its nuclear agreement with Iran as a treaty, because it probably would not have passed in that form, given GOP opposition. That decision carried its own consequences, including allowing Trump to rip up the deal.
“Ideally, it’s a treaty because it’s binding and strong and binds future administrations. Otherwise, it’s just a political agreement,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “It’s impossible, I think, in the long term, to confront Iranian ambitions for the region without Saudi Arabia being a part of it.”
While Risch would take over the Foreign Relations panel if Republicans take back the Senate in November, the committee is also in for a new top Democrat, with New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen set to take the role next year. She offered a note of optimism about a future US-Saudi agreement.
“If it really produced what people see as a long-term solution to the Middle East, and the Saudis were bought into that, and Israel bought into that, then I think there would be a real opportunity to build a lot of votes to pass it,” Shaheen said.
The View From Burgess and Elana
No one we talked to thinks a treaty would be approved before the end of the year.
And a change in administrations from Democratic to Republican could lead, at least, to a further delay. Regardless of how the agreement is structured in the Senate, it’s likely to face a disapproval vote on the Hill.
The real obstacles remain in the region, where a long-negotiated ceasefire and hostage agreement has been elusive, sapping the urgency from the Saudi treaty talks.
the entire set of agreements materializes, though, including side deals on both Israel and Palestine, there’s a real possibility that the Senate eventually approves any US-Saudi defense pact. The chamber can take a long time to process treaties, but the list of rejected treaties is relatively short.
Notable
-
The US resumed offensive arms transfers to Saudi Arabia in August after briefing Congress, as the Washington Post reported.
-
Before Trump became the GOP nominee, back in April, he talked with Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and was seen as positioned to “potentially either block any deal or greenlight it for congressional Republicans,” per The New York Times.
-
The US ambassador to Saudi Arabia sees any deal as “a comprehensive package that must be negotiated and jointly signed,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.
