Middle East Lobbying

Middle East Lobbying and Influence

This cluster tracks how Middle East states and allied actors appear in the U.S. public record through FARA filings, related disclosures, and country context.

Read the Saudi Arabia page Review our methodology

This hub exists because people usually talk about foreign influence as a slogan. We want readers to start with the record instead. Who registered? What did they say they were doing? Who did they contact? What do those disclosures miss?

What this cluster covers

The core sources are the Department of Justice FARA eFile system, the Department of Education’s Section 117 portal, and CRS background reports where country context matters. That is enough for a serious first pass. It is not enough for omniscience. FARA shows registered work. It does not capture every informal channel of influence.

How to read the country pages

Each country page should answer three questions:

what the public filings clearly show
what kinds of influence activity the filings do and do not capture
where the broader diplomatic context matters

Some pages in this cluster are already sturdy enough to stand on their own. Others are still being written. That is why the hub stays noindexed for now while the strongest country pages go live one by one.

Where to start

Start with Saudi Arabia for a public-record case study built from DOJ filings and CRS reporting. Then compare it with Qatar, Israel, and the AIPAC page, which explains why a U.S. domestic lobbying group should not be blurred together with foreign-principal registration.

Browse this section

Start with the pages that carry the most weight.

Israel — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

This page shows every Israel-registered FARA principal we can find, link to the filings, and explain what those filings mean.

Qatar — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Qatar’s U.S. influence record runs through FARA filings, Al Jazeera’s DOJ history, and large Section 117 university funding.

Saudi Arabia — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Saudi Arabia’s U.S. influence record matters because the kingdom sits at the center of regional diplomacy while maintaining a long-running registered PR and lobbying footprint in Washington.

United Arab Emirates — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

The UAE matters because it is a major U.S. partner with a current, multi-firm FARA-disclosed influence footprint that extends from Congress to public diplomacy.

Iran — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Iran is under full U.S. sanctions, so its FARA footprint is near zero. The record that does exist is a short list of criminal cases and one long-running court dispute. Here is what it shows, and what it does not.

Turkey — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Turkey is a NATO treaty ally whose Erdoğan-era government has run aggressive, sometimes criminal, U.S. influence operations, now sharpened by a 2023–25 TURKEN-linked spending surge.

Egypt — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Egypt spends less on direct U.S. lobbying than its Gulf peers, but runs a pro shop in Washington to protect about $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid. A sitting U.S. senator was convicted in 2024 as a foreign agent of Egypt. Here is the record.

Jordan — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Jordan runs a professional Washington lobbying shop to guard about $1.45 billion a year in U.S. aid. Most of it is plain, registered, and filed. Here is the record.

Iraq — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Iraq runs two parallel lobbying tracks in Washington: one for the federal government in Baghdad and a separate one for the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Syria — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Syria's FARA record has long been near-zero because of sanctions. The 2024 fall of the Assad regime and partial 2025 sanctions relief could change that.

Kuwait — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

A clear look at Kuwait's lobbying footprint in Washington, the famous 1990 PR campaign, and what the FARA record shows today.

Lebanon — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Lebanon has two influence stories at once: a tiny state-run FARA footprint, and a much larger shadow story around Hezbollah. The U.S. treats those two as separate, and so should readers.

Bahrain — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

How Bahrain, home of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, has used Washington lobbyists, from the 2011 crackdown to the Abraham Accords era.

Oman — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

How Oman, the Gulf's quiet diplomat, uses a small Washington footprint to support a large back-channel role — from the 1980 Facility Access Agreement to hosting early U.S.–Iran nuclear talks.

Yemen — Lobbying and Influence in the United States

Yemen is a fractured state with almost no FARA footprint. The real Yemen policy fight in Washington runs through Saudi, Emirati, and counter-terror channels — and through the Houthi designation flip.

AIPAC — Why It Is a Citizen Lobby, Not a Foreign Agent

A clear, sourced walk-through of (1) AIPAC's legal status, (2) the predecessor organizations and conditions that led to its founding, and (3) the functional difference between a FARA-registered foreign principal's lobbyist and a domestic citizen lobby.