Morocco has been pursuing an increasingly assertive US policy as it seeks to cement its control over its disputed southern half, with mixed results.

In March, Rabat defied Washington and the rest of the world when it ousted the UN mission tasked with resolving the decades-old conflict over the Western Sahara. Two months later, Moroccan officials upbraided US Ambassador Dwight Bush over an annual State Department report that accused the country of crushing Sahrawi independence activists.

With a small army of lobbing and PR firms in its corner, Morocco has simultaneously been working the halls of Congress to get lawmakers to embrace its de facto control over 85% of the territory. Moroccan largesse — some $3.7 million in 2015 — has bought the services of one former US ambassador to Morocco (lobby shop CEO Edward Gabriel); one former assistant secretary of state (Roger Noriega); and two former members of Congress: Democrat Edolphus Towns of New York and Republican Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida.

Diaz-Balart also happens to be the brother of current Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., Morocco’s main ally on the House panel that writes foreign aid bills. Recent victories on that front include a first-ever $1 million State Department grant for a governance program in Moroccan-administered Western Sahara and language in the pending spending bill that urges the State Department to back a census of Sahrawi refugees in Algeria amid reports of large-scale humanitarian aid embezzlement.