Transcripts For CSPAN3 Middle East Policy Council Discussion

Jamal khashoggi, the civil war in yemen and Irans Nuclear program. All right. Good morning, everyone. I am gina, the vice chairwoman of the board of the middle east policy council. Im pleased to welcome you to this, our 97th quarterly capitol hill conference. Our topic today is the United States Saudi Arabian relationship. Over the last 40 years, many of us have observed and supported this relationship from deepening our counterterrorism operation to championing womens rights. The challenge on each side has been to reconcile close, effective cooperation on National Security issues while remaining faithful to two very different value systems. Under the current leadership of both countries, these tensions have been brought into sharp focus. The nature of our military cooperation, human rights violations, addressing regional bad actors and more demand attention and likely change. These issues are ripe for informed dispassionate review and we are fortunate to have an experienced group of panelists today to delve into the factors that play affecting the u. S. Approach to saudi arabia, our relationship and its future. However, before i turn to todays program, i would like to say a few word about the middle east policy council. The council was established in 1981 for the purpose of promoting dialogue and education concerning the United States and the countries of the middle east. We have three flagship programs. Our quarterly capitol hill conference, such as todays event, our quarterly journal, middle east policy, which enjoys a strong reputation among those with an interest in middle Eastern Affairs and can be found in 15,000 libraries worldwide. And i think very importantly our education outreach program. Teach mid east. It provides Educational Resources for the middle east, targeted mainly toward secondary schools to students and teachers. Please visit us on our website. Www. Mepc. Org and our teach mid east program at www. Teachmideast. Org. This program is being live streamed on our website. So im pleased to welcome all of you who have joined us online. The conference proceedings will be posted in video and transcript form on our website, as will a recap of the discussion. An edited transcript of the program will be published in the next issue of our journal middle east policy. Let me now briefly introduce our panelists. We will begin the program with mr. Tom litman, an adjunct collar with the middle east institute and the former middle east bureau chief of the Washington Post. Our next speaker will be ms. Dana stroll, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for near east policy and a former professional staff member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Welcome. And finally, my longterm colleague and friend, ambassador gerald firestein, Senior Vice President and president of gulf Affairs Programs at the middle east institute. Jerry is also a former Principal Assistant deputy secretary and former ambassador to yemen. Id like to thank all of you for joining us today. The program will begin with each panelist delivering brief opening remarks, and this will be followed by a discussion session, which will be moderated by my colleague, the executive director of the middle east policy council. Note that we have followed our usual practice of placing index cards on all of the seats. Please use these to write down any questions you have as the speakers are speaking and then hold up the card. Our staff will collect them during the presentations and give them to the doctor so that he can consolidate the questions for the discussion period. And with that id like to turn the podium over to tom. Thank you. Thank you very much, gina. Thanks to the mid east policy council for organizing this event and inviting me to participate in it. Its now 43 years since i first went to saudi arabia. And, you know, in the days when the best hotel didnt even have telephones in the rooms, before it was really a fully developed country in a material sense. And even then it was very difficult to understand the nature of this peculiar relationship between the United States and saudi arabia, which had come together in the days when they were really at opposi opposite poles of civilization. So what i thought i would do is talk a little bit about the relationship, as im sure you all know if youre interested enough to be here, can be traced back to the time of the 1940s, really the 1930s when an American Oil Company got the first oil concession. Then in the 1940s, two countries forged their first strategic and security relationship when the king gave permission for the United States to build a Strategic Air base because the United States was fighting a twofront war. That elevated the relationship to another level, and under truman we sent in a team of specialists to create the saudi arabia monetary authority. So by that time we had we sort of had the peninsula blanketed, so to speak. But all through the time since this relationship has been beset by furious disagreements, anger and policy differences that you might think would have left some kind of permanent damage. And they began im going to enumerate them because some of them are better known than others. They began, of course, when president truman recognized israel the most it was created and other arab leaders wrote to king abdulazeez. The saudis were furious because the United States refused to back them in their dispute with britain a piece of land with saudi arabia, oman and the uea come together. He didnt want to choose between friends so he didnt. The saudis couldnt understand that. 1954, a littleknown episode the new king gave a contract to a gentleman named Aristotle Onassis that would have ended the monopoly on the oil industry. Eisenhower personally gave the order to make sure that contract never went into effect. I know about this episode because its the subject of my most recent book, which im happy to say is excerpted in this issue of middle east policy. Thank you for come. Great book. You should all buy multiple cops. Then, of course, came the oil embargo of 73 74. When you read kissingers telephone transcripts, he referred to the arabs as a bunch of savages. Which will give you an idea of the esteem after all, he was even kissinger when he finally went to saudi arabia received a gift from the king which was a bound copy of the protocols of the elders of zion, which is not the thing i would give a jew every day of the week, but in 1979, the saudis made jimmy carter very unhappy by not only refusing not only not endorsing but refusing to accept the egypt israel peace treaty. And the last time i was in baghdad was the time in the spring of 79 when all the arab Foreign Ministers got together and threw egypt out of the arab league. As much effort as jimmy carter had put in on courting the saudis, it wasnt enough. In 1988 came the peculiar episode in which the United States discovered by accident that the saudis had acquired nuclearcapable chinese missiles, which they would not let us inspect. That, i mean, the first thing that happened was richard armitage, some of you may remember, told the saudis that they had managed to put themselves right at the top of israels target list, where they had not been. That episode took some doing to unravel. Then, of course, there was 9 11. 15 of the 19 please, dont ask me about 15 of the 19. Ive answered that question every day for, like, 15 years. In 2003, when the United States invaded iraq over saudi objections, you had the famous remarks in which King Abdullah referred to it as an illegal occupation. And then came the Nuclear Agreement with iran. Which made the saudis very unhappy. Not so much because of the contents of the agreement itself, but because it spooked them. They thought we were trying to forge some kind of equitable relationship with the iranians, which they could not understand. And then, of course, came the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Now, in the whole history of this relationship, there has never been a time when the Strategic Planning or the relationship in any sense was put in jeopardy or threatened by human rights issues of any kind or the fate of any individual. Every year the state department excoriates saudi arabia in its annual report on human rights around the world and it never makes any difference in terms of policy. Even jimmy carter, who made human rights the foundation of his Foreign Policy, went to saudi arabia and was deferential to the point of obsequious because he wanted something from them. They didnt deliver, mainly the endorsement of sadats initiative, but thats how its always been, one side wants something from the other. So now the question is, what happens if donald trump is not reelected . I can imagine, lets say joe biden or amy klobuchar, who are pragmatists and centrists, holding their noses and continuing to do security business with saudi arabia. But its hard to imagine Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg or cory booker or some of the others doing business as usual. Endorsing the arms sales, you know, inviting the saudi princes to the white house. Security cooperation, i think, will continue regardless of what happens in this country. But otherwise its possible and maybe even likely that there be quite a change, especially in the visuals and atmospherics. And one reason is as youve seen in the votes on jasta a couple of years ago and on yemen, there has never been a popular constituency for saudi arabia in the United States. Very few peoples grandparents came from saudi arabia. And theres a reason why there is no congressional saudi caucus. There is a tajikistan caucus but not saudi arabia. And thats because there is no Political Risk for anybody in congress in coming out and taking a vote thats hostile to or opposed to saudi arabia. There is nothing to lose. And now you have a situation where we dont need the oil. We dont have military bases there. Unless you have major defense contractors in your district, you have nothing to lose by coming out against the saudis. So i think now for the first time really since 1945, its possible to envision an evolution of the relationship in which at long last saudi arabia will be treated like any other country. Thank you. [ applause ] good morning, everybody. So im going to build off some of though comments and talk about the u. S. saudi relationship both in the context of the congressional debate and then take it a little bit more broadly and ask some fundamental pose some fundamental policy questions for those of you who are engaged in either framing the Foreign Policy debates for your bosses on the hill, outside the hill, talking about these issues. So you all should know that i just wrapped up last year several years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as the middle east staffer. And so had a front row seat to a lot of the debates about saudi arabia and the u. S. saudi relationship as a lot of these votes were taking place here on the hill. I would characterize the current state and debate of the u. S. saudi relationship as the most serious crisis in the relationship since september 11th, since 9 11. And whats unique about the debate right now and the focus on saudi arabia is that it includes members on both sides of the aisle, its bipartisan in both chambers, its bicameral. And it is it has its not unique to the Current Administration. There were very fierce debates on u. S. saudi policy in the Previous Administration as well, specifically when then minister of defense well, current minister of defense Mohammed Bin Salman decided to engage in military operations in yemen with very little heads up to washington. And that was the Previous Administration not the current one. If you had to give one sentence to describe what the crux of the debate is right now on the hill and in washington, i think it is, is the u. S. saudi relationship and is saudi arabia more destabilizing in the region than for u. S. Interests or can it be a force for stability . So is it recklessness or not . If you look at some of the language, the findings, the senses of congress and the legislation coming out of both the house and the senate, words like recklessness, destabilizing, instability are used to describe this relationship. Generally u. S. Partners and allies, we create networks of alliances and we use tools like security cooperation, military assistance, economic engagement, trade, scholarships, cultural engagement, et cetera, because we believe that our relationships can contribute to stability, particularly in the middle east. In congress, members of congress for this congress and the past congress have probably taken more Foreign Policy votes that somehow touch the u. S. saudi relationship compared to any other issue. More votes on saudi arabia than israel, bds, iran, et cetera. That is different from several congresses about, but now its about saudi arabia. And thats whether its the vote for the justice against sponsors of terrorism, jasta, many four years ago. That was actually vetoed by president obama and then overridden in the senate. Its a very strong expression about that. Here it was viewed as a domestic issue, but certainly riyadh saw it as a statement about the u. S. saudi relationship and the senate overrode that veto, which takes a strong bipartisan majority, obviously, 67. There have been multiple resolutions of disapproval on arms sales, both offensive and defensive weapons. Thats also not new to this year. Its been going on for years. In both the house and the senate, theres been multiple votes on war powers resolutions. Multiple votes on this issue. There have been votes on amendments to the ndaa, the National Defense authorization act, in both the house and the senate that are specifically about the u. S. saudi relationship, specifically about weapons sales and specifically about u. S. Support to saudiled military operations in yemen. Im not going to talk too much about that because jerrys going to do that. And the latest series of showdowns are about congress attempts to demand some accountability and assessment from the Current Administration about what happened related to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee invoked global magnitsky designations and asked for a determination that didnt happen by the by the Trump Administration. And then finally, the most recent showdown was when the an emergency exception under the arms export control act, the aeca, was invoked in order for the administration to move forward on weapons sales to saudi arabia and other Gulf Partners without the saturate turley required congressional review period here on the hill. So some of this is about saudi arabia and a very stark difference in opinion between members of congress and the and the strategic utility of the u. S. saudi relationship. And some of it is about congressional executive purview, where should congress be determining Foreign Policy, and whats in the executive branchs purview to determine . But all of this has been taking place over years. So members of congress are not just taking votes on the u. S. saudi relationship, they are learning about weapons sales, how do they work, what do members of congress get to review, what are offensive systems, defense systems, what are defensive . They are learning the legislation, theyre learning the process, theyre learning about security cooperation, theyre learning about all the other u. S. Programs and policies and colors of money and tools that form the foundation of this relationship and have for a long time. So now they can talk about professional military education. They can talk about students studying in the United States. They can talk about the different kinds of entrepreneurship, economic commercial engagement, et cetera. So members of congress are deeply familiar now, not just with broadly the u. S. saudi relationship, but they are wellversed in the tools, which means when people talk to members of congress about the u. S. saudi relationship, the general talking points on Foreign Policy just dont cut it anymore. They are deeply educated in the details of whats going on in yemen, about the various parties in this conflict. They are deeply educated about how military systems go through a process of approval before theyre sold to any partner. So now were in a situation where its not just about saudi arabia, but there is a debate about how military sales will go forward to the rest of the middle east, the largest purchaser of u. S. Defense equipment. Against all of these votes and all of this education as a result of what was going on in the region, consider what members saw taking place in the region that they ascribe as coming out of riyadh. So there was the military intervention in yemen in 2015. After years of diplomacy, trying to avoid that. There was the blockade of qatar, which was seen as saudiled. There was the detention and for awhile resignation of the lebanese pr