What a GOP resurgence in Nov. 2 elections would mean for U.S. foreign policy

by Seth Mandel
October 20, 2010

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/1039/what-a-gop-resurgence-in-nov-2-elections-would

Writing in his memoirs, former President Bill Clinton complained that all the news headlines surrounding his first term in office were about domestic policy issues: health care, his economic proposals, gays in the military.

"But, as I had said over and over, increasing global interdependence was erasing the divide between foreign and domestic policy," he writes.

That statement may have been a self-serving defense of his decision to concentrate on domestic issues while virtually ignoring the military, but it has the benefit of being true. Clinton was right, as the recent economic downturn showed, to stress the relationship between domestic policy and foreign policy.

And that is why nations around the world should pay close attention to the American congressional midterm elections on November 2. With the Republicans expected to make significant gains, it's time to assess what effect a Republican majority in the House of Representatives¾a quite possible scenario¾would have on American foreign policy.

Last week, I attended a panel at American University on the Republican hopes for the midterms. When it came to what could be accomplished by a Republican House majority¾even if the Senate remained in Democratic hands¾the answer was unanimous: Stop the spending.

Democratic presidents have a penchant for prioritizing domestic and cultural issues over defense. Those plans¾such as Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs¾usually come at the expense of national security. It is into this category that Barack Obama falls.

"Add to these tensions the President's own inability to make up his mind and you have a recipe for potential disaster," the U.K. Telegraph's Con Coughlin writes about Bob Woodward's new book on Obama's war management. "Woodward writes that Obama was left in no doubt about the serious and active threat Islamist terrorists posed to America's national security, the majority of them based in the lawless tribal territories between Afghanistan and Pakistan, during the intelligence briefings he received soon after he won the presidency. But this did not prevent him from sticking to his view that the Afghan war was an unwelcome distraction from his domestic policy agenda and a dreadful waste of money to boot."

Obama sees foreign policy as a distraction from his goal of remaking the nation in his image.

But the significance of a majority in just the House of Representatives is that a bill can pass by a single vote majority, and any bill brought to the floor would essentially have to be approved by the speaker of the House. That means a Republican majority in the House would be able to stop the avalanche of spending on welfare state, big government projects that the public overwhelmingly opposes anyway. Obama's power is unchecked now, but a Republican House would end that.

Thus, the GOP's ability in such a case to block the spending would fundamentally realign the U.S. government's priorities. What would such a realignment look like? For that, we might want to go back to Clinton. When Clinton's Democratic party lost their congressional majorities in his first term, it ended the push for fringe cultural experimentation. And in its place came several bipartisan achievements, possibly the most significant of which was the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Ironically, Obama's Democratic party has been sitting on a couple such free trade agreements with our allies. Both Colombia and South Korea have free trade agreements with us in the works, but the Democrats in Congress have stalled both. For his part, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos recently told the Washington Post that his hopes for the free trade agreement will be renewed if the Republicans gain a majority in Congress.

"We have done everything we can," he said. "It is in the hands of the U.S. Congress…. People in Colombia don't understand [why] if we are strategic allies, other countries have free-trade agreements that are not as strategic or as good allies. I hope that after November the free-trade agreement will be approved."

Expect Republicans to make such agreements an issue after the midterms, when they will target Obama's disregard for staunch American allies in key regions of the world.

The other consideration, of course, is what role the tea party candidates will play in American foreign policy. The tea party phenomenon¾a spontaneous and organic outpouring of concern about and opposition to government overspending and overreach¾has been centered on public debt. Many analysts are warning that the tea partiers have no defined instincts on foreign policy, and therefore are a wild card.

I disagree. As I mentioned, the fulfillment of the "ending of spending" mantra will halt the course of the current administration and force it to address heretofore underappreciated issues on foreign policy. Additionally, the Senate will in all likelihood remain in Democratic hands, which means we'll have divided government. In such a case, with the White House and Senate still Democratic but the House Republicans now holding the purse strings, most of the GOP's efforts will be to stop the bleeding.

That might cause deadlock on the domestic policy front¾another reason foreign policy issues will get more attention.

America's role in the world has been the subject of intense debate. "But because of the principles to which it is dedicated, the United States always strives to uphold its highest ideals," the Heritage Foundation's Matthew Spalding writes in a new report elucidating a conservative vision of American Exceptionalism. "More than any other nation, it has a special responsibility to defend the cause of liberty at home and abroad."

Expect Republicans to stand foursquare behind those principles as a cornerstone of their return to power in American politics. And expect our friends around the world to once again be treated like friends.

Seth Mandel is Washington DC based US Correspondent of Weekly Blitz

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