The Elephant In The House (And Senate)

The Constitution may give pride of place in the conduct of foreign relations and military affairs to the president, but Congress is anything but a nullity when the messy details of policy implementation are involved.  The predicted Republican ascendancy will change the way in which foreign and military policies are executed and will have many, perhaps indirect, effects on their formulation as well.

The prospects for change are already bothering many in the European elite, which group seems to be convinced that the results of Tuesday's vote will be a form of Cheney on steroids.  There is a notion over there to the effect that the new, Tea Party powered Republicans will constitute a triumph of the paleologues with all that implies in the area of looking for countries to invade and individuals to kidnap preparatory to waterboarding.

While these overblown flights of nightmarish fancy will not come to pass for reasons too self-evident to deserve comment, the shifts in emphasis and goals will be real--and not necessarily negative.  They will, however, be discomfiting not only to European elites but to President Obama as well.

The Republicans, with very few exceptions, are far from sold on the basic tenets of anthropogenic climate change.  They are even less given to believing in the necessity of heroic measures such as "cap-and-trade" or other economy distorting mandated reductions in carbon output.  This reality means that the upcoming Great Festival Of Alarm in Cancun is likely to be less productive of the sort of results favored by Al Gore and company than was last year's Festival of Urgent Anxiety in Copenhagen.

The inevitable consequence will be a eagerness on the part of countries great and small to blame the US for the lack of results to say nothing of any unusual weather event anywhere in the world in the months and years to come.  China in particular will seek (with high probability of success) to enhance its position with both the advocates of putting the US economy in a straitjacket and the legion of states which want a handout from Uncle Sam to offset the horrid impact of global warming upon their citizens.

Absent comprehensive legislation, the Obama administration will seek to use administrative measures and regulation to reach the same outcome.  The resultant brouhaha will be both unedifying and without use in the diplomatic conflicts sure to come on the heels of "failure" in Cancun.

The enlarged Republican minority in the Senate will prove to be resistant to the apparent appeal of the new START signed by Obama and Medvedev.  While the new agreement does not spell the end of American national security as has been alleged by some on the farther shore of rationality, it can be portrayed with some legitimacy as favoring the Russians over the US.  Well founded questions regarding the ability of the US to modernize its nuclear arsenal exist.  There are questions as well regarding any wink-and-nod deals between the American team and its Russian counterpart regarding the further development and deployment of American anti-ballistic missile systems.  These two areas alone give a good basis for those Republicans who oppose the treaty.

The consequence of delay not to mention a failure to ratify the agreement will be a Russian finger on the (in)famous "reset" button.  The dynamic duo in the Kremlin, particularly Vladimir The Horseman, have set Russia firmly on course to reestablish its existence as a Great Power.  It is to be expected that the two would take full advantage of a seeming rebuff by the Senate as a cause for greater assertiveness on the global stage.  This would not make the conduct of US foreign policy any easier.

Republicans have long shown a particular distaste for foreign aid.  Provided this distaste can be shown without damaging the interests of Israel, many from the Tribe of the Elephant would take cheerful advantage of the current budget constrained environment to cut foreign assistance, or, more probably, tie such assistance very tightly to specific US interests and oversight.  The current minority whip has already promised to take aid to Israel out of the State Department budget and put it into that of Defense.  Need one know more?

The Geek takes a jaundiced view of foreign aid generally as history has shown few successes and many failures.  The capacity of well intended but poorly advised or supervised aid to wreak unintended harm on the recipient state is well established.  So is the record of corruption, graft, and akin shenanigans.  Still, there is a place and need for foreign aid provided it is tied to definable US interests, properly monitored, and its success or failure accurately measured.

Even in the most constrained environment, the cost of foreign aid is minor but the results can be maximal.  In addition, the provision of humanitarian relief aid is a mitzvah, an obligation imposed by a decent regard for the ethical basis of life.  Realism and idealism alike require foreign aid; a tight fisted Republican hand on the money valve might go a good way to assuring the money is spent wisely and well.

The Republicans may not be so easy going on the Iranian Question as Mr Obama has been.  Come to think of it, that is a foregone conclusion.  Even though there is powerful evidence for the proposition that Iran's nuclear program has so many internal, inherent problems that its still a couple of years at the least from achieving a break out capacity, there are more than a few Republicans who not so secretly share the John McCain idea seen during the 2008 campaign, "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."

Should the more or less upcoming next round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 turn out to be one more go around of the same old, same old, there will be great sentiment among the Elephants to be far more robust--particularly in pressuring companies located in allied states to cease all truck with the mullahs.  That would be useful as the sanctions are far from complete in their application.  The Republicans would also be less hesitant than Mr Obama in the matter of supporting the "Greens" in Iran.  This also has the potential to be useful in seeking modification of Iranian behavior but is no magic bullet.

Republicans will complicate Mr Obama's announced intent of starting the draw down in American combat forces in Afghanistan in mid-2011.  There is a high likelihood that the president (or some of those near the Oval) have realized the deadline was a very poor idea and the Republican opposition in the next Congress would provide welcome political cover for the reality of war.  Advantage can be taken from a strong Republican posture on the withdrawal issue as it would undercut any belief on the part of either Taliban or the Men In The Shadows Of Islamabad that all that need be done to achieve ultimate victory is keeping on keeping on until the Americans start leaving in less than a year.

If Anwar al-Awlaki and other Americans who have shifted allegiances from the US to the cause of violent political Islam are as smart as so many think them to be or as knowledgeable of US politics as claimed, they will call off the terror campaign as it targets the US.  The Republican presence in Congress is more likely to promote a very robust response to any outrage traceable to Yemen.

The corrupt and indecisive cabal purportedly the government of Yemen had best realize this as well.  Unless the Yemenis can show themselves not only rhetorically ready but physically capable of squashing Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, they will be facing a level of US involvement far transcending fifty or so Special Forces members and a drone or two.

The government of Pakistan should also wake up and smell not the coffee but the Tea.  Many of the Republican "young guns" are not cut from the same cloth as previous generations of Republicans.  They will be far more suspicious of Pakistan as a "valued ally" in the "joint" war on Taliban and similar groups.  If the new Chairs of the relevant committees are true to their protestations, the money valve may go to "off" very fast regardless of Mr Obama's promises.

On the matter of the Defense budget, the Republicans will lose their juice rapidly if they seek to exempt the Pentagon from necessary austerity.  The new leadership would be well advised to back Secretary Gates in his efforts to hold down military expenses, particularly in the big ticket area of procurement.  Lots of gee whiz new gadgets will have to be left to wither on the vine if the war fighting capabilities of the US forces is to be maintained along with the commitment to lower the deficit and not raise taxes.

The Republicans would also be well advised not to to on an orgy of investigations into foreign and national security policy.  This sort of activity may be emotionally satisfying given the closed nature of the administration and may generate some politically useful headlines, but will not help in the cause of forcing the administration to drop its more obnoxious addictions to ideologically driven love affairs with hostile governments or ineffective and anti-American international bodies.  Searching for concealed dead bodies as events of the Nineties showed do not result in necessary changes in policy direction.

Equally unproductive, equally damaging to US national and strategic interests would be some sort of retreat into neo-neo isolationism.  Some of the Tea Party movement supported Republican candidates seem to have flirted with this sort of retrenching.  They are wrong as a cat barking.  The world will not let the US retire to the sidelines without invoking costs of a damaging nature to We the People and our descendants.

In short, while foreign and military affairs have played no measurable role in the campaign, the reality is simply that for Congress as for President the next two years will be years of foreign policy and national security challenge.  And, it does no good to restore jobs, to bring the economy back from the brink of deflation if the loudest noises heard are not cheers of thanksgiving but the explosion of Muslim detonated bombs--or the orders of the Trolls of Beijing.