Congress’s Urgent Agenda, Sudan’s Year of War, Ecuador-Mexico Embassy Fray, and More

MCMAHON:
In the coming week, Congress returns to feuds over surveillance law in Ukraine, and Sudan begins a second year of civil war. It's April 11th, 2024 and time for The World Next Week. I am Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Anne Robbins.

MCMAHON:
Carla, we're going to start off on Capitol Hill and this is because we've already had a congressional return that has been mired in internal feuding, grappling over a couple of, in particular very big agenda items. House Speaker Mike Johnson is seeking a path for reauthorizing Section 702 of what is known as FISA or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but he's running into really some exceptional opposition from his own caucus. Nineteen Republican lawmakers defied the GOP leadership and voted with Democrats to defeat a procedural vote that would've advanced reauthorization for the spy legislation. So Carla, Johnson is trying to bring up FISA to the floor it seems like at last report, but with this kind of pushback, what does this mean for this national security priority?

ROBBINS:
So Bob, as you said, Congress is back in town and the dysfunction is back with them in full force. And right now some of the biggest issues roiling the Republican ranks and by the middle of the month they're only going to have a majority of one. Some of their biggest problems are in the national security world. Yesterday after President Trump posted on Truth Social, "Kill FISA, it was illegally used against me," Speaker Johnson's third effort, count them, three, to advance a five-year extension of Section 702 collapsed in an all-out brawl and this section of FISA allows the government to collect electronic communications. We're talking about phone calls, emails, text messages from foreigners abroad without a warrant even when those non-citizens are communicating with Americans in the U.S. 

It should also be noted that the so-called spying Mr. Trump is referring to concerned a different section of FISA, which is used for targeting Americans on U.S. soil. When the FBI did get a wiretap to listen in on a former Trump campaign aide as part of the Russian investigation. But never mind, he did call for killing it and the next thing you know, nineteen MAGA Republicans killed it. So why is 702 so controversial for both the right and the left? And it is a bipartisan objection. While there's supposed to be limits on how American communications swept up in investigations can be used, those limits have been repeatedly broken by the FBI, including as part of investigations into the January 6th riots and the Black Lives Matter protests. And when the FBI was caught out, they have supposedly cleaned up their act. The bill Johnson has been backing would write those reforms into law requiring more transparency in how communications are used and limit the number of U.S. officials with access to that pool of information.

But the left and the right isn't happy. And both House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and ranking member Jerry Nadler, and that's a really strange pairing, support a measure which would require law enforcement to get a warrant before querying the repository for the contents of Americans communications. National security officials have been up lobbying like mad on the Hill for the 702 extensions. They say that warrant requirement would either deny them access to critical intelligence or slow the process down so much that it would make it almost useless for terrorism, human trafficking or whatever it is. 

So section 702 is supposed to expire on April 19th. FISA has its own court and that ruled last week that they could continue for another year even with the expiring because there are active cases, but remarkably, even after Wednesday's defeat, a Trump-caused defeat, Johnson vowed that he's going to regroup and move forward. This is a man who likes pain.

MCMAHON:
Wow. Well, it's quite a scenario you've sketched out, Carla, and it does make me wonder how many other issues like this, we're going to talk about one of them relatively soon, but it makes me wonder how many issues are going to be affected in the spy realm. You mentioned terrorism as just one. There's many other things going on right now. The world is a perilous place. Do we have a sense whether there's any sort of immediate national security concerns or it's just the precedent of what's happening is particularly raising alarm?

ROBBINS:
Well, do I believe that the sky's going to fall if this 702 isn't extended? I'm somewhat skeptical, to be perfectly frank. When 702 was put in in the first place, it was supposed to make up for the warrantless wiretapping of the George W. Bush administration and we've been scrambling since 9/11 to make up a lot of the abuses of that time period. So what the right balance is, I don't know. What I do know is that when President Trump snaps his fingers and it cuts off any reasonable debate on something, that's concerning as well.

MCMAHON:
And he makes it so personal in such a way, he tends to galvanize a certain part of his base. So yeah, it's going to be, as with many other things, it's going to get very interesting to see how Speaker Johnson is able to navigate this moment. 

Carla, I wanted to move on to another extremely momentous issue, which is aid to Ukraine. Speaker Johnson has faced threats from members of his own party to remove him if he moves on the aid package that is before him. There have been daily reminders of what's at stake for Ukraine, which just weathered another set of aerial assaults overnight. So should we expect any action from Congress on Ukraine?

ROBBINS:
Well, the situation there is really dire. General Christopher Cavoli, who's the head of the U.S. European command testified before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, yesterday. And he said that without more U.S. military support for Ukraine within weeks, Russia would hold a ten to one advantage on artillery shells. And he said something we all know, "The side that can't shoot back loses." And Johnson has refused to take up the Senate-passed supplemental bill, which is $95.3 billion, which includes $60 billion for Ukraine. But he's also said repeatedly that he's going to introduce an alternative version, though it's still not clear what that would look like. There's no doubt that he got a clean bill past the rules committee and that's the committee in the House that decides whether legislation can come to a vote and other procedural issues...There's no doubt if he got it through the money for Ukraine would be approved easily with Democratic votes and a good number of Republicans.

The question is what the speaker is going to attach to it to try to get it through or whether they're going to come up with some other game to bypass the rules committee. He's been trying to mollify his caucus on this one and the ideas that Johnson has floated so far, something called the Repo Act to use seized Russian assets to pay for the aid or making the money alone rather than a grant, or overturning Biden's ban on new applications to export liquefied natural gas. None of these ideas are ringing any major bells with the conservatives in his caucus and certainly not with President Trump.

What conservatives are demanding, notably draconian border security provisions have no possibility of garnering democratic votes that are going to be needed to pass the House or get through the Senate. Meanwhile, Johnson's number one nemesis Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia is pushing for Johnson's ouster, particularly over Ukraine. What is Johnson doing? He's on his way to Mar-a-Lago on Friday for what is being billed as a major announcement on election integrity. Whether that's going to be enough to take the heat off of Johnson and to quiet MTG, we will see, or whether he's going to have to give on FISA or Ukraine, I don't know.

MCMAHON:
So the plot thickens on the Ukraine issue and former President Trump. He had came out relatively recently with what looked to be an updated plan for a peace there which would involve acknowledging Russian gains in terms of the annexation of Crimea and the Donetsk, roughly a chunk, almost 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, I believe was countered in that. Is that some way of indicating that Trump is trying to articulate his vision for Ukraine? And is that some sort of a through line to this debate at all or is it just something else to consider in the background as this urgent aid package continues to sit in the House?

ROBBINS:
I don't see this as a serious peace plan and it seems to me to be appeasement. At some point, if the Ukrainians don't get aid, they will lose and they're not going to stop fighting of course, but it looks like they've got the 600-mile front. Russians are expected to mount a major offensive this summer. Ukrainians are building bunkers and trenches, but the Russians have this enormous, enormous advantage in artillery. And if we don't get this aid to them, I suppose at some point they may be forced into some sort of a peace plan, but I don't see this as an elaborated Trump plan for this. And even Lindsey Graham has been reportedly very unhappy with the Trump proposal. So I'm not taking this very seriously right now, and certainly Zelensky is not taking it very seriously. I think what everyone's taking very seriously is the fact of what General Cavoli said, which is, if we don't get the aid to the Ukrainians, they're going to lose.

MCMAHON:
And even if that's a long path to losing, it's grinding, it's destructive. Again, we're seeing every day what seems to be a ratcheting up of Russian attacks on civilian targets, on infrastructure targets and so forth, and it's more and more looking dire for Ukraine. We're seeing NATO try to come up with creative ways of maybe funding some sort of help, but there's a long path for them to have the capability to both fund increased aid as well as actually create new armaments materiels, defense mechanisms and so forth. So we've had the Ukrainian foreign minister, I believe most recently coming in very blunt terms asking for older Patriot systems to try to help defend Ukraine. It's getting hotter and hotter, Carla.

ROBBINS:
And the Czech government has rallied twenty countries to have this common fund for purchasing artillery shells on the global market. The Ukrainians themselves have lowered the conscription age. Everybody's trying to pull together to try to figure out anything they can possibly do to push back against the Russians. But when you think a year ago what we were talking about, we were talking about a Ukrainian offensive. Now what everyone's talking about is a Russian offensive. The Russians clearly have the upper hand at this point and the Ukrainians need, they need this support even just to hold the line.

So Bob, let's talk about Sudan, another very grim tale. Next Monday, April 15th, marks one year since the start of the fighting between Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan's Sudanese Armed Forces and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed, eight million people are displaced and both the Army and the RSF are blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid. They seem determined to starve each other out and what they're doing is starving their own people. The World Food Program reports that 18 million people in Sudan face acute food insecurity or what the UN is describing catastrophic hunger. Is there any way out of this?

MCMAHON:
It is looking more and more grim, Carla. And that is a really difficult question and disturbingly difficult question to answer. And it's worth noting that even with the numbers that you just cited, the scale of them, in addition to those displaced, by the way, there's a million and a half people who have actually left the country who are in pretty desperate refugee camps in places like Chad. Even with those high numbers and clear signs of famine spreading, they are struggling, people who work in Sudan areas are struggling to get attention because of everything else going on. In particular, the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing Israeli-Hamas war, for example. There's the Ukraine issue that we just mentioned, and there are many other areas that are occupying the inboxes of governments that can make a difference, especially the U.S. and Western capitals, which could bring some pressure to bear.

But one of the big issues that's being seized on now, Carla is can those who are clearly lining up on different sides of this, behind the two commanders you just mentioned, can those parties play any sort of a role? Can they be pressed themselves to play a role that helps bring this to an end? Let's cite one of them, UAE. It's a big supporter of the RSF, the Rapid Support Forces, and their leader known as Hemedti. And those Rapid Support Forces, almost like a client force at this point. They control gold supplies among other things. They control certain very valuable assets in the country. Al-Burhan also is in control of certain valuable assets and he's backed by Egypt and seemingly nominally by the Saudis, although the Saudis are trying to play a peace broker role still with the United States. The United States is going to push for first of all more aid funding at a donor conference in Paris on April 15th.

But then how does the aid get in there in a way that's not weaponized and not controlled by either side? They're both showing their willingness and ability to loot and to commoditize any aid that comes into the country and whether it's parts of Khartoum, the capital that they hold, the different sides hold, or elsewhere. And so they're becoming more and more dug in and they're relying on their outside aid to help them. So can the U.S. make a role? There's a U.S. envoy named Tom Perriello who's trying to make a difference now. He's pushing for peace talks, I guess they're going to resume again on April 18th in Jeddah. They're trying to rally the sides to come up with first of all, a verifiable clear cease-fire to just stop once and for all the fighting, which is causing such disproportionate damage to civilian infrastructure, to certainly civilians as well as rampant war crimes that are being reported. And unfortunately in places like Darfur, which was not too long ago, victimized by genocide, by the forces similar to those that are supporting Hemedti right now. 

On so many levels, it's humanitarian, it's human rights, it's just political, it's just a regional stability. There's a lot at stake here, Carla. And we're going to see by the end of this month whether first of all the U.S. has enough leverage to sort of bring about a change in the approach to this and whether it can do that through regional efforts, maybe filtering into the UN at some point. Otherwise, we're looking at Sudan becoming just another one of these inflection points and rival for the worst humanitarian situation in the world, by far.

ROBBINS:
Peace talks implies that there are things to be bargained over. It seems to me like this is just a naked fight for territory and power. Do we know what they're negotiating?

MCMAHON:
You're right, it is about maintaining territory and power. These are two commanders who have gained a bit of parity from what we've seen over a year of fighting that each has a different set of strengths that they can deploy. And so, which one is willing to give in and which one is willing to compromise? In the past we've seen that happen when one side gets the upper hand and the other side is willing to sue for peace. I don't know actually from what I've seen, what they are willing to, what's on the table for them in terms of a lasting solution. All I know is that there's a ceasefire effort that involves a bit of sticks and carrots in terms of the U.S. can bring to bear some sanctioning of some of the leaders of either side, for example. It can also press the governments that are aiding them like the UAE. But I haven't seen anything that shows that the U.S. is willing to really step up and press the leadership of the UAE or Egypt for that matter, which supports the government-run forces in Sudan. 

So it's really about, as I said, the cease-fire, it's about maybe can there be some agreed upon access points into Sudan for humanitarian aid that are then protected in which both sides are observing basic norms in providing aid to people who are at risk of famine. And then it's the longer term effort of some sort of a conference in which all parties come to it. 

And this is what you're seeing over and over again, Carla, you're seeing the new effort is, "Okay, let's not leave anybody out. Let's make sure we're getting both the two main sides, the militias that are fighting under each of them and then the outside actors who are supporting them." And this includes in addition to the UAE, Iran's got involvement, as I said, the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Ethiopians to some extent. So it's getting all the parties into this process and coming up with some sort of plan in which they're speaking candidly about who controls or what's the mechanism for giving up control in Sudan. 

The only other thing I would mention in this regard is there was said to be a great deal of angst and wringing of hands when a previous Sudanese war was taking place. This was a civil war between north and south, which ultimately led to the creation of a new country, South Sudan. There were many times when people said, "This is just hopeless. This is just going to go on and on." And yet through persistence of unlikely coalition of groups, including some U.S. evangelicals and others, they were able to bring about a solution to that. Things are not great in South Sudan. Things are not great between South Sudan and Sudan, but that particular grinding conflict was ended and a solution was found. We'll see what happens here, Carla, but I guess I'm not offering very satisfactory blueprint for peace.

ROBBINS:
Bob, it's time to discuss our audience figure of the week. This is the figure listeners vote on every Tuesday and Wednesday at CFR underscore org's Instagram story. And this week, Bob, they selected, "Ecuador VP Jorge Glas Arrested in Mexican Embassy." This is an incredible violation of international norms and specifically the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations from 1961. So I looked this up and Article 22 says, "The premises of a diplomatic mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving state may not enter them except with the consent of the head of the mission." And here they were kicking down the door going after these guys. What were the Ecuadorians thinking?

MCMAHON:
That remains a really big question, actually. And not only this sort of stunning violation of what has been a mostly sacrosanct part of international law playing out, but also the reports since then are that first of all that when they seized Jorge Glas, they beat him rather brutally. They stuck him away in a prison where he had lost consciousness. There is not a great deal of hope that he's going to be treated in any sort of proper fashion. 

It's still unclear the extent to which he represents a threat to the Ecuadorian leadership right now. They had said that he had represented a serious flight risk and they had to do what they did. But again, there are diplomatic norms that are really important and also cut multiple ways because this also affects people who are outside of Ecuador who might be seeking asylum in another mission that Ecuador would like to protect and yet can't.

So for them to do this has raised concerns that the leadership of Noboa is going to turn this particularly hard line now and start to really violate all sorts of norms and exert more control, especially on law enforcement. Our colleague Will Freeman at CFR has said he's concerned about Noboa turning into what he's called, "a Bukele direction," citing the leader of El Salvador who's taken extremely hard line steps, Nayib Bukele, to quash crime and the gangs that have been dominating El Salvador and had caused, by the way a lot of flight out of the country. But he's also very popular now. He's also, he's suppressed crime, he's changed the calculus and he's also grossly violated norms of both cracking down on crime, of treating the incarcerated and so forth. 

So we don't know whether this is the early harbinger of Ecuador turning in a really bad direction because of its acknowledged crime problems and corruption problems, but it's bad for international law. It's bad for Ecuador-Mexico relations and in general raising a lot of serious questions about what's going on in Ecuador.

ROBBINS:
Across Latin America, I mean nineteen of the twenty countries that came to this extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers of the community of Latin American Caribbean states, CELAC, denounced this raid. And these are people who were of different ideological colors and international law experts in the United States, the OAS, people from the left, people from the right. And there's an irony of course in this as well. If you recall, Julian Assange was hanging out on the Ecuadorian embassy in London and there was some suggestion that the UK government might raid them, and the Ecuadorians went completely nuts about this. And then there's also this great sort of pissing match between AMLO, the Mexican president, that's going on between him and Noboa. 

But in the end of the day, this is one of the sins against which all others are measured. You don't mess around in other country's diplomatic soil. I mean these countries are, this is considered sort of sovereign soil, so it could well be a harbinger of a terrible crackdown or it could just be really crazy tunes. Either way, it's not a good look for Ecuador.

MCMAHON:
It is not a good look for Ecuador. And again, it's worth mentioning they have a legitimately serious problem with drug trafficking gangs that they've been trying to get a handle on. President Noboa had designated something like twenty-two gangs as terror groups, and Jorge Glass is not a drug trafficker as far as anyone knows. He was accused of a different type of crime, but also a former very senior official. So for them to go so strenuously to seize him and to so grossly violate an international norm like this, and then to abuse him and beat him while locking him away, it does indicate a bit of the concerning crazy times that you mentioned, Carla.

ROBBINS:
Sort of performance art, substitute for real policy.

MCMAHON:
Well, that's our look at the turbulent world next week. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz meets with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang in China. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank hold their annual meetings. And the Solomon Islands, lest we forget, is holding long delayed general elections. Solomon Islands is part of some of the geopolitics playing out.

ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review while you're at it. We appreciate the feedback. If you'd like to reach out, please email us at TWNW at CFR.org. The publications mentioned in this episode, as well as a transcript of our conversation are listed on the podcast page for The World Next Week on CFR.org. Please note that opinions expressed on The World Next Week are solely those of the host, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

Today's program was produced by Ester Fang and Sinet Adous with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks to our intern Olivia Green for her research assistance. Our theme music is provided by Markus Zakaria, and this is Carla Robbins saying so long.

MCMAHON:
And this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye and be careful out there.