President Donald Trump wants to spend the final weeks of his presidency transferring Americas most advanced fighter jet, a set of powerful armed drones and thousands of bombs and missiles to a Middle Eastern dictatorship that is deeply implicated in multiple civil wars and aggressively represses its own population.

A growing group of lawmakers and activists is mobilizing to stop him.

Trump plans to wrap up a $23 billion weapons sale to the United Arab Emirates by the middle of December. It would put an exclamation point on a presidency that has focused more on arms deals than any since President Dwight Eisenhower first warned of the political power of the military-industrial complex.

Before that happens, critics of the deal want both houses of Congress to pass resolutions disapproving of the transfer.

Their hope is that sending such a message in a bipartisan way, which would have to be the case for the bills to clear both the Democratic House and the GOP-held Senate, would pressure Trump to respect lawmakers reservations about how the belligerent UAE might use the weapons or would at least motivate President-elect Joe Biden to halt the transfers once he takes office in January.

On Wednesday, Republican Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) joined Democratic foreign policy heavyweights Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.) and Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.) in sponsoring four resolutions of disapproval for the arms sales. Now those lawmakers and a coalition of influential activists from humanitarian, anti-war and human rights groups will spend the weeks ahead convincing Congress to support the legislation and pushing leadership in the two chambers to bring it to a vote, starting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

For a number of reasons, the activists face an uphill battle. Senators will not reconvene until Nov. 30 and they are then only present and able to consider motions like these resolutions for a handful of days in December. Its unclear exactly when the lawmakers statutory right to block the arms deals expires, but aides say that point should be on or around Dec. 10. In that same period, Congress will be considering possible additional coronavirus relief and hammering out a bargain to keep the government open ahead of a funding deadline of Dec. 11.

The UAE also has a positive reputation in Washington, bolstered by its suave ambassador , Yousef Al Otaiba, and his large lobbying operation. Both representatives of the Emirates and Trump administration proponents of the deals are likely to emphasize how they align on two priorities that are broadly shared across Capitol Hill: supporting Israel and countering Iran.

Many members of Congress, among others, perceive the arms sales as a gift to the Arab nation for its agreement earlier this year to normalize relations with Israel. Al Otaiba is expected to play on Americans anxieties about Tehran and their sense that his country is uniquely moderate and pro-Western among Muslim-majority nations to win support for the deal.

Still, a dozen well-informed observers told HuffPost they are increasingly confident that a rare combination of progressives, hawks and more on Capitol Hill will send a big signal about changing U.S. foreign policy to prioritize human rights and give less credence to bellicose, often unreliable dictators abroad.

I expect quite a fight in Congress a short and fierce fight, said Philippe Nassif of Amnesty International, one of the groups opposing the sale.