“I think we need to fight, what else can we do” to hold Saudi Arabia responsible for the operation that killed Khashoggi, said Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee who considered the murdered journalist to be one of its constituents. Kaine said bluntly that he “was not happy” to learn that the Crown Prince was not among the Saudi operatives that the Biden government sanctioned last week.
Kaine pressed to revoke the 2001 and 2002 war authorizations that the presidents of both parties used to justify US military action linked to threats of terrorism. The candidate for vice president of the Democratic Party in 2016 criticized Biden’s attacks in Syria and the potential for a more active and similar conflict with Iran, which could turn into total war.
“Congress must be the decision maker here about the beginning” of strikes, Kaine said. “I shouldn’t have to make a hypothesis – [the Biden administration] must come and explain the justification. “
“We are going to have a debate before the American public about what is at stake,” added Kaine.
Biden and those who know him have often described foreign policy as their first love. Former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he is known for respecting the role of Congress in shaping the United States’ foreign policy. By not imposing penalties on the Saudi crown prince, however, the president is practically inviting members of Congress to pressure him to go further.
The Crown Prince “is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and if you don’t have any consequences here, it’s a hunting season for journalists,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Who proposed the law requiring disclosure of the US intelligence report that blamed the Crown Prince. Wyden is also lobbying Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, to release additional documents about the operation that led to Khashoggi’s death, although he did not elaborate.
Democrats see a contradiction in Biden’s willingness to publish the intelligence report by naming the Crown Prince, while he refuses to directly attack the Saudi leader with sanctions or other punishments. Some Democrats even want the Biden government to stop engaging with the Crown Prince until the kingdom shows an improvement in its behavior on human rights issues.
Action by Congress was needed only to pressure the executive branch to nominate the Crown Prince in his assessment of those involved in the Khashoggi assassination. Given this dynamic, additional Capitol measures are likely to be needed if Democrats want to revise the United States-Saudi Arabia relationship in a more dramatic way for which Biden has indicated he is ready.
Complaints aside, for sure, Democrats are much more satisfied with Biden’s stance in the early stages of his presidency than that of former President Donald Trump, whose erratic forays into foreign policy frustrated lawmakers. But Democrats are facing Biden in the hope that he will deliver on his campaign promises, which included harsh punishments against those responsible for Khashoggi’s death, as well as reducing American involvement in the Middle East.
“I could have liked it more [actions], but this is a different night and day than working with the Trump administration, ”said Kaine of Biden’s approach.
In a letter to Congressional leaders, Biden said he ordered the attacks on Syria in retaliation for attacks by Iran-backed militia against US forces in the region, calling the response an act “self-defense”. The government is informing senators this week about the implications for national security and also about the legal justification for strikes, lawmakers said.
The White House defended the decision not to penalize the Crown Prince directly for Khashoggi’s assassination, saying it would be counterproductive to impose sanctions against the leader of an important regional security partner.
In addition to the Middle East, Democrats also hoped for better communication with the executive branch after years of often non-existent dialogue with Trump. No lawmaker has been more critical of Trump-era trends than House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-California), who questioned the legal logic behind last week’s strikes in Syria and described the process of notification to Congress as inappropriate.
“In the powers of war, there is guilt on both sides for the past 10 years,” said Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.), A newly appointed member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “We need to have a robust debate about something so fundamental. We just didn’t have it. “
To make things more difficult for Biden, several Democratic congressmen – from the leadership level to the grassroots – have defended these causes for decades, under presidents of both parties, and see his nascent presidency as a new opportunity to remedy the overreaching executive power .
Among them is Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), The only vote against the 2001 war warrant after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Lee was one of the first to speak out against Biden’s strikes in Syria and, most recently, he wrote a language on the official Democratic Party platform calling for the 2001 and 2002 authorizations to be revoked. She said Biden’s military actions this week just boosted her efforts and she had no excuse for facing members of her own party.
“President Biden, I think, is going to have to listen and explain what happened,” Lee said in an interview. “I know he sent letters. But I also believe that this only highlights the urgent need to revoke these blank checks for endless wars. I will continue until we do this. “
Democrats were excited to see that the Biden administration did not justify the attacks in Syria by invoking the war authorizations of 2001 and 2002, which have been used by presidents of both sides to justify retaliatory attacks in the Middle East.
Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), A Biden ally who supported Kaine’s efforts to revoke former authorizations, said he supports the president’s air strikes in Syria, but Congress must reaffirm its authority over the use of force military. This is especially true, added Coons, as Iran continues to become more involved in the region through its various representatives.
“I really think there is important and unfinished work to be done to reconsider and update the authorizations that are now 20 years old and to realign them with what we are currently doing in the world,” said Coons.
The issues that generated these initial divisions between Biden and his Democratic colleagues also created an unlikely alignment between the party lines. Congress has taken bipartisan steps in recent years to address some of these lingering foreign policy issues. Both chambers have already passed War Powers resolutions cutting U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen’s civil war, but Trump has vetoed the measures.
More recently, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell supported Biden’s attacks in Syria and said the president had the legal justification for launching them. And years before that moment of strange bedmates, several key Republicans in 2018 and 2019 joined the Democrats to criticize then President Trump’s reluctance to condemn and punish Riyadh more strongly after Khashoggi’s assassination.