What if the chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the committee that oversees legislation impacting war powers, treaties, troop deployments, and military aid, was illegally acting as a foreign agent of Egypt, one of the biggest recipients of U.S. aid and military sales?
That scenario is exactly what the Department of Justice alleged last month when it accused Sen. Bob Menendez (D—NJ) of using his influence to increase U.S.-taxpayer funded aid to Egypt in exchange for gold bars, a Mercedes and stacks of cash.
The Justice Department and Menendez are making history. This is the first time a sitting U.S. senator has been accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (or FARA), a law that prohibits Members of Congress from acting as an agent of a foreign principal.
The Justice Department’s FARA investigations into a high profile politician, think tank president and hip hop star sends a clear message that no one is above the law, says a new video by the Quincy Institute’s Senior Video Producer Khody Akhavi and Democratizing Foreign Policy Program Director Ben Freeman.
Eli Clifton is a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute and Investigative Journalist at Large at Responsible Statecraft. He reports on money in politics and U.S. foreign policy.
Algeria's Representative to the United Nations Amar Bendjama speaks with U.S. Representative to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, during a vote on a Gaza resolution that demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan leading to a permanent sustainable ceasefire, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, at U.N. headquarters in New York City, U.S., March 25, 2024. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
The United Nations Security Council finally managed to pass a resolution on Monday demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza — the first true indicator that pressure on President Biden to address the war’s calamities is working. The passing of the resolution was followed by spontaneous applause in the Security Council, which is highly unusual. The last time this happened was in 2003 when France’s Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin gave a historic speech against the Iraq war. The applause reflects the immense exasperation with Biden's efforts to keep the war going.
All countries supported the measure with the United States abstaining. Ten countries put forward the measure —Algeria, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Switzerland — that is, all of the non-permanent members, or “elected members,” of the Security Council.
By Friday of last week, when Russia and China vetoed Biden's draft resolution, the E10’s draft had three operative clauses: demanding an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, demanding the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages, and emphasizing the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Over the weekend, intense negotiations took place following a U.S. threat that it would veto any resolution that didn't "support the diplomacy on the ground" — the diplomatic efforts of Qatar, Egypt, and the U.S. The Biden administration sought to link a ceasefire with the release of all hostages, that is, making progress on one issue depended on complete progress on the other.
This linkage could have made one issue hostage to the other. This is the Israeli position; it wants no pressure against its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza until all hostages are released, effectively making the entire population of Gaza hostages. The most immediate consequence of such a linkage is that the war and killing would continue since no issue can be resolved until all issues are resolved.
The other countries rejected the U.S. demand, insisting that both the release of hostages and a ceasefire are imperative and should not be linked, as it otherwise would provide justification for Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza since Hamas hasn't released all hostages. (Which is why Israel and Biden have pushed for this linkage).
The resolution that passed does not accommodate the U.S. demand. Instead, it combines the two demands (ceasefire and hostage release) into one single operative clause, but without linking the two issues.
Here's how the operative clause currently reads:
“Demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a permanent sustainable ceasefire, and also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs, and further demands that the parties comply with their obligations under international law in relation to all persons they detain.”
The Biden administration tried to change the language of the resolution to support the diplomatic efforts co-led by the U.S. But this is a process that thus far has been unsuccessful, partly because the U.S. has pushed its parameters to meet all Israeli demands. This includes linking a ceasefire with the release of all hostages, including male soldiers.
Again, the other countries have resisted, and the E10 resolution only acknowledges these diplomatic efforts rather than supporting them or deferring the Council's responsibility to this process.
An African diplomat told me that the American draft resolution vetoed on Friday positioned the U.S.-led negotiations above the UNSC. The E10 rejected that proposal because they believe subordinating the U.N. Security Council to diplomatic processes preferred by the U.S. will delegitimize the legal authority of UNSC.
The fact that the U.S. abstained signifies the first instance in which we see Biden's rhetorical shift in favor of a ceasefire translate into political action.
The question is how the passage of this resolution will impact U.S. policy in practice. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly threatened to cancel a delegation to Washington if Biden didn’t veto the resolution. (He subsequently followed through on his threat). It is noteworthy that the Israeli Prime Minister felt comfortable publicly threatening the U.S. while Biden, after Israel has engaged in extensive war crimes using U.S. weapons and undermined U.S. interests, has not even been able to muster the courage to issue a meaningful warning to Israel.
But will the U.S. still continue to sell arms to Israel, even if Israel continues to refuse a ceasefire? Legally, the resolution does not oblige the U.S. to cease arms sales, but politically, there will be added pressure on Washington to help implement the resolution rather than simply acting as a bystander of a ceasefire.
The Biden administration has dismissed all accusations of Israel committing war crimes by declaring that Israel has a right to defend itself. But with the UNSC demanding a ceasefire, will it be more difficult for Biden to continue to turn a blind eye to Israel's indiscriminate killings in Gaza?
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How the UN Security Council can prevent the US from killing the Iran nuclear deal
How the UN Security Council can prevent the US from killing the Iran nuclear deal
Though the resolution fell short of clearly demanding a ceasefire, Moscow and Beijing nevertheless enable Biden to shift the blame to Russia for the Council's inaction, even though Biden has been the key obstacle to progress at the Council for the last six months.
Though much of the debate will be on their vetoes, an analysis of the resolution text reveals both movements in Biden's position, as well as why his shift remains insufficient in many aspects.
First of all, this is significantly stronger than previous American drafts, yet it still falls short of a clear and unequivocal demand for an unconditional ceasefire. One one hand, it no longer calls for a ceasefire as soon as practicable, as a previous U.S. resolution did, which was a remarkably weak formulation. But the operative clause is still very convoluted and unnecessarily complicated — which has become the hallmark of everything Biden has done on Gaza:
(The Security Council) Determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides, allow for the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance, and alleviate humanitarian suffering, and towards that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages;
The clause does not demand a ceasefire but determines that it is imperative. Its support is not directly for the ceasefire but for the negotiation process the U.S. has been co-leading and whose parameters the U.S. has sought to determine in favor of Israel. The text points out that this effort to secure a ceasefire is "in connection with the release of all remaining hostages." (Emphasis mine.)
This is an Israeli demand that is not likely to be accepted by Hamas in return for a time-limited ceasefire rather than a permanent one. As such, the American draft endorses the Israeli position in the negotiations and indirectly conditions the ceasefire on the release of all hostages, effectively making two million civilian Gazans hostages as well.
Other operative clauses are stronger and more direct, although they fall short of calling out Israel by name. For instance, the draft is very strong in:
— “Rejecting…any forced displacement of the civilian population in Gaza."
— “Demanding ...that Hamas and other armed groups immediately grant humanitarian access to all remaining hostages."
— “Rejecting… actions that reduce the territory of Gaza, including through the establishment officially or unofficially of so-called buffer zones."
— “Condemning ... calls by government ministers for the resettlement of Gaza and rejects any attempt at demographic or territorial change in Gaza."
Of course, the government ministers in question are all Israeli, but the text falls short of naming Israel. Still, this should arguably commit the U.S. to stopping Israel's ongoing efforts to carve territory in Gaza and build buffer zones. Otherwise, the U.S. will fail to act on demands it itself put into its own UN resolution.
On one crucial point, though, as UN journalist Rami Ayarihas reported, the text has weakened. Earlier drafts strongly opposed any Israeli attack on Rafah, but the current draft has watered down the language and moved it to the preamble, only expressing "concern that a ground offensive into Rafah would result in further harm to civilians" instead of demanding that it be prevented.
Note that during the Security Council debate, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield made a critical statement: If Russia puts forward a resolution that does not support the "diplomacy on the ground" — that is, the diplomatic process co-led by the US — the Council will remain deadlocked. This is a direct threat by the US to veto any resolution that doesn't endorse the US diplomatic process and the American/Israeli parameters for a ceasefire.
In conclusion, this is a shift in Biden's position, but there may be less here than meets the eye. Undoubtedly, Biden's rhetorical shift in favor of a ceasefire is noteworthy, but the devil is in the details. The unnecessarily convoluted operative clause raises concerns that this shift is less straightforward than it could and should be.
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Col. Ben Ibrahim, Niger Armed Forces (FAN) director of training, receives a briefing from Senior Master Sgt. Kyle Platt, 724th Expeditionary Air Base Squadron, Civil Engineer Flight, of the CE Flight operations at AB 201, Niger, March 11, 2023. Col. Ibrahim, and a delegation of FAN, visited AB 201 to participate in a knowledge exchange of how the different sections of the air base operate and how those sections support overall operations. Knowledge exchanges, such as these, ensure the U.S. remains an enduring partner with Niger and helps build our partner’s capacity to strengthen their defense capabilities. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Michael Matkin)
An American government delegation recently traveled to Niger to, according to the State Department, “continue ongoing discussions since August with leaders of the National Council for Safeguarding the Homeland (CNSP) regarding Niger’s return to a democratic path and the future of our security and development partnership.”
The CNSP is the junta that took power in Niger in July 2023, in a coup that extended a trend of military takeovers in the Sahel. For the U.S., the Nigerien coup was the most consequential of these putsches, given longstanding and intensive security cooperation, including the presence of a major U.S. drone base in the northern city of Agadez.
The visit went poorly. Initially scheduled for March 12-13, the delegation extended its stay by one day in hopes of meeting military head of state General Abdourahamane Tiani, but was denied. Then, on March 16, the CNSP announced that it was rejecting the military cooperation agreements between Niger and the U.S. The junta has suggested that in the absence of what it considers a viable and legal status of forces agreement (referring to a 2013 document that the junta now rejects), American civilian and military personnel are no longer welcome in Niger. The Pentagon and the wider U.S. government are working through the implications of that statement while attempting to convince the Nigerien authorities to let U.S. personnel stay.
Diplomatically, the U.S. side appears to have stumbled in several ways. The CNSP’s spokesman criticized the U.S. for its “unilateral” announcement of the delegation’s arrival date and composition and said that the Nigerien authorities received the delegation out of simple courtesy and hospitality. It’s also possible that the Americans inadvertently insulted their hosts by sending what the U.S. regarded as a “high-level” team but what the Nigeriens may have seen as insufficiently senior. The delegation was headed by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee and AFRICOM Commander General Michael Langley and included other senior officials such as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander.
This episode has been a flashback to my yearlong fellowship in the State Department in 2013-2014. During that time, one thing that shocked and dismayed me is that the assistant secretary of state — as a position — was implicitly considered within the State Department as a position equivalent in rank to an African head of state.
Within State (and I assume within Defense and within AFRICOM), senior officials are treated with extraordinary deference and sometimes fear by their own subordinates. But there is no reason why an African leader should see things that way. To be lectured at by an American official whose rank is far junior to one’s own is an experience that many African officials tolerate, but it cannot be pleasant. For the Sahel’s newly minted juntas, who emphasize a particular brand of sovereignty and who have not been shy about antagonizing Paris, it is not a stretch to rebuke Americans over perceived (and, I would argue, actual) arrogance.
The delegation met Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine along with senior members of Niger’s junta, such as Generals Salifou Mody and Mohamed Toumba. But I suspect one reason the delegation could not see Tiani is because they misread how seriously the Nigeriens want to be taken.
Substantively, the conversation also seems to have gone badly. According to some reports, the American officials seem to have been criticizing Niger’s turn towards Russia and to a lesser extent Iran. The junta also appears to have tired of criticism over the generals’ handling of the “transition” back to civilian rule — criticism that is well deserved, since no serious transition appears to be underway, but that is nevertheless unwelcome.
The episode underscores both the misguidedness of America’s pre-coup policies towards Niger and the incoherence of current policymaking. In terms of pre-coup policies, Niger was a darling of American counterterrorism in Africa. Looking the other way over civilian overreach (particularly under President Mahamadou Issoufou from 2011-2021) and military abuses was long justified in the name of the “partnership.”
But one thing for American policymakers to reflect on is why the supposed closeness of the two militaries — including longstanding relationships at the senior level — has not translated into any substantial American influence over the junta. If huge investments in training and infrastructure can evaporate with a change in political fortunes, and if those investments cannot be proven to have flattened the curve of the Sahelian insurgency in the first place, then what are they worth?
In terms of current policymaking, American officials don’t seem to know what they want — an ambivalence that was easily detectable during the months of foot-dragging over invoking U.S. law that calls for suspensions of security assistance to coup-afflicted countries. The U.S. has sometimes appeared to view the Nigerien junta more favorably (or be more desperate to curry its favor) than the juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso, again due to the massive U.S. investments and sunk costs in Niger. Yet the U.S. also appears to lecture Niger over democracy, Russia, and more. Perhaps the delegation calculated that the might, prestige, and resources of the U.S. would continue to impress the Nigeriens— they calculated wrong, and so achieved neither of the two contradictory pulls in U.S. policy, advancing neither democracy nor security cooperation.
I was not in the room, obviously, but it also strikes me that AFRICOM’s preferred rhetorical frames may play very badly on the ground in the Sahel now. In their annual posture statements, successive AFRICOM commanders depict Africa as a place where outsiders (al-Qaida, the Islamic State, Russia, China, etc.) cause havoc, to be opposed by a stalwart coalition of the U.S. and its “partners.” This is a view of Africa that offers little room for Africans to exist other than as victims of some outside force or as junior partners to the U.S., junior partners within their own story.
That might play well to Congress — but it did not go over well in Niamey, and it would be received even less warmly in Bamako or Ouagadougou. The juntas could also easily read how negatively they are depicted by AFRICOM; while AFRICOM’s criticisms of the juntas are largely fair (I shared many of them), U.S. officials cannot expect to dismiss the juntas as malevolent and incompetent but then go to make asks of them.
Going forward, one thing to watch for advocates of restraint is whether and how easily the U.S. can pivot out of Niger. It may turn out that the drone base there, billed as essential to the fight against Sahelian jihadism, is not so essential after all. The critical question to ask will not be whether things get worse — security has steadily degraded since approximately 2015 in many parts of the central Sahel — but whether there is any proof that the presence or absence of vast American military expenditures makes any discernable difference.
The U.S. may yet salvage something in Niger, but if it exits, that will not necessarily be a tragedy for Nigeriens or Americans. And sadly, U.S. policy incoherence and diplomatic missteps may have squandered, for the medium term, whatever opportunity had existed to place meaningful pressure on the junta over democracy and human rights.