Senate lawmakers this week will debate a resolution that would for the first time use congressional authority to stop U.S. participation in a foreign war.
The war is taking place in Yemen but the real target of the Senate resolution is Saudi Arabia. Senators are eager to rebuke Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose brutal murder the CIA believes he orchestrated.
Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was murdered and dismembered with a hacksaw in October when he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. His body has not been recovered, but senators who were briefed by CIA Director Gina Haspel last week say the evidence leaves no doubt about bin Salman’s guilt.
[Read: GOP senators think Saudi’s crown prince is guilty of Khashoggi murder after CIA briefing]
“There has been a fundamental shift here, but more importantly around America in our perception of the Saudis,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said. “People have an entirely different view now of the Saudi monarchy, its repression of dissent, its treatment of women and minorities and of course its ongoing brutality and criminality in Yemen and there is now a greater appreciation of American complicity.”
The resolution on the Senate floor this week, authored by Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., would invoke the War Powers Act to block critical U.S. support of the Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen.
The measure is the second major congressional rebuke of Saudi Arabia in three years.
In 2016, both the House and Senate succeeded in a rare bipartisan vote to override President Obama’s veto of legislation allowing the families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to sue the Saudi government, arguing for a measure of Saudi complicity.
The Yemen measure faces a much more difficult path to passing Congress, however, in part because President Trump won’t sign it and it lacks enough GOP votes to override a veto.
While most Democrats would back the measures, Republicans don’t want to hobble the Saudi mission in Yemen because its aim is to defeat the Iran-back Houthis.
But the resolution may pass this week and it has pushed lawmakers to author other measures that would rebuke the crown prince over Khashoggi’s murder more than President Trump has so far been willing to do.
“I think there is a lot of interest in sending a very strong message to Saudi Arabia on the Yemen War and on the Khashoggi murder,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Ct., said.
Graham, along with Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have partnered with other lawmakers on a resolution calling for the United States and the international community to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for Khashoggi’s death.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meanwhile, will likely mark up a measures this week authored by ranking member Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Sen. Todd Young, R-Indiana, that would give Congress more oversight over the U.S. role in Yemen and would also “demand meaningful accountability” from Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi’s murder.
Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he is also working on a separate resolution “that would speak to the killing of the journalist by the crown prince,” he said.
Congress won’t be in session much longer this year which means any legislation would have to be reintroduced and churned through the Senate once again in 2019.
Lawmakers believe the appetite for punishing the Saudis will remain in January.
“This isn’t over,” Corker, who is retiring, said. “And if we pass something in committee with a strong vote, we’ll be right back in session. I have a feeling with a strong enough vote and just the way things are, that is something that hopefully will not die.”
