Almost four months before he is due to leave the White House, after eight years in office, President Barack Obama suffered an unprecedented congressional veto that has sent ripples through American-Saudi relations, already under serious pressure in the last five years that have seen upheavals in the Middle East and the Arab world, and after and because of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPO) — the agreement between Iran and the P5+1 concerning the Iranian nuclear programme. “JASTA” stands for the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act that the United States Senate adopted in May with the House of Representatives following suit, despite objections from the Obama administration and its warnings that the bill would harm both American-Saudi relations as well as American interests abroad. On 23 September, President Obama vetoed the bill. Five days later, both the Senate and the House of Representatives overrode the presidential veto. The Senate voted 97-1 against the veto. The dissenting vote was that of Senator Harry Reid, the leader of Democratic Party members in the Senate. As for the house, the final tally was 348-77, with 18 Republicans and 59 Democrats voting not to override the veto. Commenting on the vote in the house, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia) said: “We can no longer allow those who injure and kill Americans to hide behind legal loopholes, denying justice to the victims of terror.” Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, pointed out that most of his colleagues in the senate “felt the best way…was… to acknowledge that the victims need an outlet… But there are concerns... I think there is a desire to get into a better place.” By a better place he probably meant amending the bill later on after the mid-term elections of the senate and the house next November. It is interesting to note in this respect, that when the ink had not dried yet on the veto override, 28 senators sent a letter to Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), the two co-sponsors of the bill, in which they referred to concerns [that] have been raised regarding potential unintended consequences. The first is the impact of JASTA on American personnel abroad if foreign governments try to sue them for actions taken by the United States in parts of the world like the Middle East (for instance, the American invasion of Iraq, or the use of American drones in targeting terrorists). The second is, undoubtedly, American-Saudi relations. The signatories of the letter promised to work with the two sponsors of JASTA in a constructive manner to appropriately mitigate those unintended consequences. The letter was signed by chairman Corker and Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland), top members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Another influential member of the senate who put her signature to the letter is Dianne Feinstein (D-California), the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Also Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) and Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island), top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator Cardin promised to explore with my colleagues the possibility of whether we need or will need additional legislative action, adding that “such additional legislation would allow justice for the family members of victims of the 9/11 attack while ameliorating some of the potential adverse consequences of JASTA”. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) commented after the veto override that American lawmakers need to make sure they do not open a “Pandora's Box” and reassure Saudi Arabia that Congress is not finding them guilty of 9/11. He stressed that there is a need to think about how to modify this bill. American legislators have been under constant pressure on the part of families of the victims of 9/11 to pass the bill. They were engaged in a systematic… lobbying effort to get a vote on the measure, and in September, they got a very powerful ally, for the week before the 15th anniversary of 9/11 Chairman Bob Goodlatte offered his support for the measure. According to some congressional sources, the approval of Goodlatte was key to the decision by several members in the house to vote to override the veto of President Obama. Throughout the summer of 2016, the Saudi government mounted an extensive campaign to lobby against the adoption of the bill, warning that, if passed, it would undermine the principle of sovereign immunity. However, Saudi officials who lobbied against JASTA stopped short of threatening any specific retaliation if the law was passed. Several influential senators and congressmen have blamed, implicitly, the Obama administration for the present situation; namely, a veto override with many reservations about the bill's utility and its probable adverse impact on the national security interests of the United States. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) partially blamed the American president himself in this respect. Senator McConnell had this to say: “That was a good example, it seems to me of a failure to communicate early about the potential consequences of a piece of legislation. By the time everybody seemed to focus on some potential consequences of it, members had already taken a position. It would have been helpful… [if] we had a discussion about this much earlier than last week.” Meanwhile, Senate Republican whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said: “What's so remarkable to me is the detachment of this White House from anything to do with the legislative process. They were basically missing in action during this whole process.” Going back to April 2016, it is very interesting to follow what Senator Cornyn said then on the nature of contacts between Congress and the White House with respect to JASTA: “Unfortunately, the administration has worked to undercut progress of this legislation at every turn. It appears that the Obama administration is pulling out all the stops to keep this bill from moving forward before the president's visit to Riyadh. I wish the president and his aides would spend as much time and energy working with us in a bipartisan manner as they have working against us, trying to prevent victims of terrorism from receiving the justice they deserve.” Many American legislators argued that their efforts to find an alternative before the vote was largely ignored by the Obama administration. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said that he does not think there was enough time to consider all the ramifications. “I am worried about getting into tremendous legal morass that could really cost this country.” All the above is very serious in an election year. This is probably the reason why American lawmakers overrode the presidential veto, lest American voters would accuse them of undermining the interests — let alone the rights — of the families of the victims of 9/11. President Obama, in a letter to Senator Harry Reid before the vote on the override, explained that his “opposition to JASTA is based primarily on its potential impact on the United States. The United States has a larger international presence, by far, than any other country — we are active in a lot more places than any other country, including Saudi Arabia”. The purpose of JASTA, in its own wording, is: “to provide civil litigants with the broadest possible basis, consistent with the Constitution of the United States, to seek relief against persons, entities, and foreign countries, wherever acting and wherever they may be found, that have provided material support, directly or indirectly, to foreign organisations or persons that engage in terrorist activities against the United States.” The bill itself does not designate any country by name; however, the bill has been viewed as directed against Saudi Arabia on the grounds that 15 of the 19 terrorists who carried out the 11 September attacks were Saudi nationals. Of course, the 9/11 Commission found no proof that the government of Saudi Arabia as an institution, or senior its officials, provided funds or support for Al-Qaeda. When the report of the commission was published, 28 pages were redacted. Upon the insistence of the Saudi government, and in the context of its lobbying to prevent the adoption of JASTA, the Obama administration declassified those pages, which did not contain any evidence that the government of Saudi Arabia had anything to do with the 11 September terrorist attacks. It is most probable that once the 116th Congress is convened before the end of the year there will be a concerted effort on the part of leading congressional leaders to amend JASTA in order to mitigate its adverse consequences on the national security interests of the United States, on the one hand, and on the future course of American-Saudi relations, in a time of great uncertainty in the Middle East, on the other. It goes without saying that JASTA has sent a message to Saudi Arabia that its relations with the United States need a rethink. Similarly, it is a message that Saudi Arabia should also stop supporting and funding armed militias and Islamic fundamentalist groups. That should not mean that American-Saudi relations take a nose-dive. The two governments have had shared interests in the Middle East and the Arab Gulf for eight decades. I doubt this is going to change in the short or medium term. After all, the Obama administration, in eight years, has sold Saudi Arabia arms worth $100 billion. And the unstable strategic environment across the region compels both countries to safeguard their strategic partnership. This explains why the United States Senate, one week before it overrode the presidential veto on JASTA, defeated a bill that would have stopped an arms deal with the Saudi government. In the same time, a resolution to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia till Riyadh reduces the humanitarian toll of its bloody war in Yemen languishes in committee, at least till now. Daniel Byman, a senior fellow of the Centre for Middle East Policy, wrote in a Brookings Institution brief that, “The Saudi regime has emerged [since 2003] as a vital counterterrorism partner… Yet it is not a simple story of progress: The kingdom engages in many troubling behaviours today that make the terrorism problem worse. In the end, policymakers would do well to remember that Saudi Arabia is a key partner but not a friend; the United States and Saudi Arabia share many common interests, but they do not share common values or a common worldview.” It will be interesting to monitor the curve of American-Saudi relations in the next four years, and more particularly if a Republican president enters the White House in January. The writer is former assistant to the foreign minister.
