(HOST) America’s foreign policy received little attention during the latest election campaign. But as veteran ABC News correspondent and VPR commentator Barrie Dunsmore observes, the results of the election will likely complicate President Obama’s foreign policy decisions.
(DUNSMORE) President Obama is committed to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan by July 2011. The big question is, at what pace? Given that much of the moderate/ conservative wing of the Democratic party was wiped out on Tuesday, surviving congressional Democrats are now more anti-war and are likely to press for rapid withdrawal. Ironically, they might make common cause with some libertarians or Tea Party Republicans who want to reduce the defense budget. At more than two billion dollars a week, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would seem to be an attractive target for deficit hawks.
The conventional wisdom has been that the Republican victory would bode well for proposed free trade treaties with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. But this could be wrong, given protectionist sentiments among those in both parties concerned with high unemployment and slow growth.
A new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia still needs to be ratified by the senate. The administration is reportedly counting on a deal with Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl to bring along some of his party’s votes. In return he’s demanding guarantees of a multi-billion dollar program to modernize American’s nuclear weapons labs. Again, in the current economic environment – that too could be a tough sell.
Eric Cantor, the Republican congressman from Virginia and likely new House majority leader, has stirred up a hornets nest on the subject of aid to Israel. Cantor has suggested that future aid be taken out of the foreign aid budget – and added to the Pentagon’s. Presumably this would allow Tea partiers to gut foreign aid without hurting Israel. But many of Israel’s supporters see this as a dangerous maneuver and strongly oppose it.
Then there is Iran and its nuclear ambitions. On Sunday, the Washington Post’s David Broder, wrote that an effective way for Obama to spur the economy and create jobs, and thus improve his chances for re-election, would be to go to war with Iran. The basis for his argument was that the great depression didn’t truly end until this country fired up its factories to fight World War II. That is a questionable reading of history, but the real objection is that this is an idea being pushed by the discredited neo-cons who engineered the Iraq invasion. More to the point, it’s an idea recently embraced by Sarah Palin.
Ignoring the potentially catastrophic consequences of an American attack on Iran, Palin has said to FOX News, if Obama decided to bomb Iran, quote: "Things would dramatically change. If he decided to toughen up, and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies, I think people would shift their thinking… and there wouldn’t be as much passion to make sure he wouldn’t serve another four years."
Those are the words of the self-styled godmother of many of the new Tea Party members of congress, many of whom owe their seats to her endorsement.
What impact will that have on America’s Iran policy? Stay tuned.
(TAG) For more commentaries by Barrie Dunsmore, go to VPR-dot-net.