Right Web

PRA's Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.

One of the U.S. Senate’s key supporters of right-wing domestic and foreign policies, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has been a proponent of U.S. military intervention in the "war on terror" and costly strategic weapons programs. Along with like-minded Senate colleagues, including Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Kyl has frequently taken an aggressive line on "enemies" across the globe, in particular in the Middle East, championing the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and U.S.-backed “regime change” in Iran.

On September 27, 2009, shortly after revelations emerged about a secret Iranian nuclear enrichment facility, Kyl declared on “Meet the Press,” “What we're trying to do here eventually is to get a regime change with a group of people in there that are more representative of the Iranian people, who we really can talk with in a way that might end up with a good result. I think it's very difficult to do that with the current leadership and especially the elected president.” Asked whether he was calling for military action against Iran, Kyl argued that “you don't take any of options off the table.” [1]

Kyl also promoted increasing U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan in support of controversial counterinsurgency efforts pushed by both rightist advocacy groups and liberal-interventionist groups, including the Center for a New American Security. Asked on “Meet the Press” about calls by military commanders in Afghanistan to increase U.S. military forces in that country, Kyl stated, “General McChrystal makes clear that to successfully pursue this counterinsurgency policy, you not only have to beat the Taliban, but you have to keep them from coming back in. And that's what we haven't had enough troops to do and the Afghan army and police don't have the capability of doing yet. [2]

 

Congressional Record

Kyl has represented Arizona since 1987, first in the House of Representatives and since 1994, in the Senate. During his tenure, Kyl has been an unfailing proponent of right-wing agendas in both domestic and foreign policies. In 2003 and 2004, his votes "supported the interests" of the National Right to Life Committee 100 percent of the time (and therefore NARAL Pro-Choice America zero percent of the time), according to vote-smart.org. In 2005, on budget, spending, and tax issues, Kyl supported the interests of the rightist Americans for Tax Reform 90 percent of the time, and supported the American Conservative Union 100 percent of the time. (For more on Kyl's voting records, see www.vote-smart.org.)

During the 2006 mid-term elections, Kyl won 53 percent of the vote in Arizona, bucking a trend that saw several hardline congressman (including Pennsylvania Republicans Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Curt Weldon) lose their seats, in part because of a backlash against the foreign policies promoted by the George W. Bush administration.

While Kyl was closely associated with the Bush administration's war on terror, it was his stance on immigration that proved to be the lightning rod issue in his 2006 reelection campaign. An opponent of Bush-supported legislation that passed the Senate in early that year that aimed ease immigrants’ path to citizenship, Kyl used his reelection campaign to hype the purported threat posed by immigrants with criminal records. Among the policies he has proposed is forcing undocumented immigrants to return to their countries before applying for a proposed temporary work program, an idea that his fellow Republican from Arizona, Sen. John McCain, has harshly criticized. [3]

Kyl's hawkish positions have earned him the support of military contractors, who have donated generously to his election campaigns. Since 1993, several major military contractors such as Lockheed Corporation, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Honeywell International, Veridian Corporation (now a part of General Dynamics), TRW, Northrop Grumman, and United Technologies have contributed to his campaigns. From 1997 to 2002, Kyl received $3.8 million in campaign contributions—26 percent  from PACs, of which 88.1 percent came from business, 0.5 percent from labor, and 11.4 percent from ideological or single-issue groups. While on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Kyl received contributions from such energy corporations as Bechtel, Enron, Halliburton, Occidental Petroleum, and PG&E. Kyl raised more than $7 million for his 2006 Senate reelection campaign. (For more on Kyl's campaign fundraising and contributors, see his profile on the Center for Responsive Politics’ www.opensecrets.org.)

 

Foreign Policy Hawk

Kyl has been a foreign policy hawk since his first days in Congress, supporting U.S. military aid to the Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s. In 1998, he cochaired (with Lieberman and several Israeli Knesset members, among others) the U.S.-Israeli Parliamentary Commission, which argued that both countries faced imminent threats from nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. According to a September 1998 Center for Security Policy "Decision Brief," commission members were invited to share their concerns with the so-called Rumsfeld Missile Commission, a congressionally mandated body led by Donald Rumsfeld that was heavily criticized for exaggerating the threat of ballistic missiles. [4]

Kyl joined fellow Republican Senators Jesse Helms, James Inhofe, and Robert Smith in orchestrating the defeat of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The main point of contention on the CTBT was the issue of underground nuclear weapons testing, which the treaty prohibited. Opponents contended the United States would be unable to deter "rogue" nations from developing nuclear weapons unless it could test its own stockpiles. Treaty supporters argued that testing was unnecessary; physicists and the directors of the three nuclear labs pointed out that the existing Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program adequately tests the safety and reliability of stockpiles without underground testing.

Kyl has also proved to be one of the Senate’s most vociferous promoters of militarist policies in the Middle East. His calls for “regime change” in Iran date back to at least 2003, when he promoted Senate resolutions aimed at tightening sanctions and isolating the regime in Tehran (for more on these resolutions, see Right Web Profile: Coalition for Democracy in Iran). Kyl also cosponsored the Iran Freedom and Support Act, which is subtitled, "A bill to hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran." Commenting on the bill, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) said: "While this bill makes a point of so-called not using force against Iran, be assured this is a stepping stone to the use of force, the same way that the Iraq Liberation Act was used as a stepping stone." [5]

On Iraq, Kyl criticized calls during the final years of the Bush administration to reduce the U.S. military presence there. In September 2007, for example, he told CBS's Bob Schieffer, "I don't know of any responsible foreign policy or military analyst that doesn't appreciate that a premature withdrawal would have severe national security consequences. The president has talked about it. Secretary [Robert] Gates has talked about it. General [David] Petraeus has talked about it. Start with Iran—leaving a vacuum in Iraq for Iran to fill would have disastrous consequences for us. The genocide and ethnic cleansing that would probably occur if the Iraqi forces are not able to keep peace and stability there would be blood on our hands, in effect.” [6]

After Israel's summer 2006 offensive against Hezbollah, Kyl and other senators introduced a resolution "condemning the actions of Hezbollah and fully supporting Israel's self-defense efforts." In September 2007, Kyl and Lieberman spearheaded an amendment urging the State Department to label Iran's Revolutionary Guards officially as a "foreign terrorist organization." The non-binding amendment, which passed 76-22, says that “it is in the critical national interest of the United States to prevent Iran turning Shia extremists in Iraq into a 'Hezbollah type force,'" according to the Agence France Presse. [7]

 

Ties to Advocacy Groups

Kyl has repeatedly joined neoconservative-led causes aimed at widening U.S. Mideast intervention. Kyl has served as honorary co-chairman, along with Lieberman and George Shultz, of the reincarnated Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), the Cold War-era anti-communist group that was revived in 2004 with the declared intention of "protecting and expanding democracy by supporting policies aimed at winning the global war against terrorism and the movements and ideologies that drive it." CPD members have included a number of well-known rightist and neoconservative figures such as Frank Gaffney, Newt Gingrich, Jack Kemp, and Jeane Kirkpatrick.

In a July 20, 2004 op-ed for the Washington Post addressing the nature of the "present danger," Kyl and Lieberman warned that one of the biggest challenges facing America was dissent over the administration's efforts to fight a global war on terrorism: "The leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties have so far stood firm in their commitment to finish the job in Iraq and to fight to victory the war on terrorism. But that bipartisan consensus is coming under growing public pressure and could fray in the months ahead. Although the tide is turning in the war on terrorism, a political undertow in this country could wash out our recent gains. We must not let this happen."

Like the latest version, the first two iterations of the CPD—in the early 1950s and again in the mid-1970s— consisted of policy elites committed to raising bipartisan congressional and public support for increased military budgets and a more aggressive global military posture. Both committees proved extremely successful—the first winning broad support for militant Cold War policies, and the second undermining the politics of détente and arms control. All three incarnations have defined the "present danger" as threats to U.S. national security from abroad and internal passivity in the face of these external threats. (See the GroupWatch Archive Profile: Committee on the Present Danger.)

Kyl has also served as the honorary co-chair, along with former CIA chief James Woolsey, of the National Security Advisory Council of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a hawkish policy institute that cited the CPD as a model when it was founded in 1988. Led by former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney, CSP claims to be "a non-profit, non-partisan organization committed to the time-tested philosophy of promoting international peace through American strength." CSP's advisory council is chock-a-block with neoconservatives and hardliners, including Morris Amitay, former director of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee; Kathleen Bailey of the anti-arms control group the National Institute for Public Policy; William Bennett; Midge Decter, former head (with Donald Rumsfeld) of the Committee for the Free World; and former Bush administration officials Richard Perle and Douglas J. Feith.