Juan Cole: The World Is Safer Without a Republican House
[Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, maintains the blog Informed Comment. His most recent book, just out in paperback, is “Engaging the Muslim World.”]
Although Congress for the most part leaves foreign policy to the president, it can occasionally intervene pivotally in that arena, as when it shot down Woodrow Wilson’s plan to have the U.S. join the League of Nations. Obama’s hopes for better relations with the Muslim world were based on a renewed U.S.-brokered peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, on direct negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, on gradually bringing the Afghanistan war to an end after an initial troop surge, and on a military withdrawal from Iraq. If the freshman class of 2010 comes into town riding atop elephants, it is likely to contribute to the failure of these policies, some of which were already in trouble, and thus to worsen U.S. security.
Some of Obama’s undertakings were unlikely to succeed from the beginning, such as an effort to have the right-wing Likud Party in Israel, with its far right-wing coalition partners, make peace with the deeply divided Palestinians. A Republican-controlled House, beholden to pro-Israel evangelicals, will back up the government of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in its refusal to freeze further settlements on the West Bank and its recalcitrance in negotiating in good faith with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Indeed, Eric Cantor wants to put aid to Israel in the U.S. defense budget so as to protect it from even the possibility of U.S. pressure. Republicans will pound a nail into the coffin of this round of peace talks, to the extent that they can do so. Since the worsening condition of the stateless Palestinians is the powder keg of Middle East politics, failure could lead to more uprisings and terrorism directed in part at the U.S....
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Although Congress for the most part leaves foreign policy to the president, it can occasionally intervene pivotally in that arena, as when it shot down Woodrow Wilson’s plan to have the U.S. join the League of Nations. Obama’s hopes for better relations with the Muslim world were based on a renewed U.S.-brokered peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, on direct negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, on gradually bringing the Afghanistan war to an end after an initial troop surge, and on a military withdrawal from Iraq. If the freshman class of 2010 comes into town riding atop elephants, it is likely to contribute to the failure of these policies, some of which were already in trouble, and thus to worsen U.S. security.
Some of Obama’s undertakings were unlikely to succeed from the beginning, such as an effort to have the right-wing Likud Party in Israel, with its far right-wing coalition partners, make peace with the deeply divided Palestinians. A Republican-controlled House, beholden to pro-Israel evangelicals, will back up the government of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in its refusal to freeze further settlements on the West Bank and its recalcitrance in negotiating in good faith with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Indeed, Eric Cantor wants to put aid to Israel in the U.S. defense budget so as to protect it from even the possibility of U.S. pressure. Republicans will pound a nail into the coffin of this round of peace talks, to the extent that they can do so. Since the worsening condition of the stateless Palestinians is the powder keg of Middle East politics, failure could lead to more uprisings and terrorism directed in part at the U.S....