Why Are Republicans Actively Undermining Obama’s Foreign Policy?

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule, or ruin, in all events.” – Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Speech

This is a short meditation about the Republican Party. Last week Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) took to the Senate floor, to encourage the Israelis to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran:

The Israelis will need to chart their own path of resistance. On the Iranian nuclear deal, they may have to go rogue. Let’s hope their warnings have not been mere bluffs. Israel survived its first 19 years without meaningful US patronage. For now, all it has to do is get through the next 22, admittedly long, months.

Those 22 months would be the remainder of Mr. Obama’s term as president. You can see a video of McCain’s speech here.

And so, the Republican effort to make our foreign policy a partisan mess continues.

You may have heard the phrase, “politics stops at the water’s edge”. That thought dates to 1948, when the idea of a Treaty to establish NATO was debated in Congress. The Senate was controlled by Republicans, Harry Truman was president. Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) worked with the Truman Administration to create and pass the Vandenberg Resolution, which paved the way for the US to negotiate an agreement with our European allies.

Vandenberg was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and it was he who said “politics stops at the water’s edge”. He helped the Truman administration get bi-partisan support for the Treaty.

You can connect the dots from John McCain’s love affair with Middle East war, to John Boehner’s (R-OH) love affair with Bibi, to Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) letter to Iran, undermining Obama’s negotiations on their nuclear program. In them, we see a complete repudiation of Vandenberg’s principle.

The Lincoln quote should remind us that he was speaking to his fellow Republicans in February, 1860. The issue then was slavery, and it was dividing his party along with the country. Lincoln urged fellow Republicans not to capitulate to Southern demands to recognize slavery as being right, but to “stand by our duty, [opposing slavery] fearlessly and effectively.” But, his comment about “rule or ruin” has resonance today.

As the 2016 presidential race picks up speed, we can expect foreign policy to be the key issue for Republicans. The strategy starts from Mr. Obama’s foreign policy approval ratings holding at 37% in a January 2015 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. As we can already see today, the Republican presidential contenders will inevitably compete to appear more hawkish on foreign policy.

Republicans will run away from the economy and towards their testosterone-laden policy positions of more guns, less butter, lower taxes. The public clearly believes that Mr. Obama should have done more to manage Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Iran, and Yemen. And with so much to be unhappy about, Republicans should have little trouble making the case that it is time for a change.

The ISIS stalemate most likely is helping Republicans. A recent CNN poll finds that 58 % disapprove of his handling of the campaign against ISIS. It will play even better for Republicans if the situation worsens, and Americans grow more frustrated with setbacks, or just a lack of progress. The Republicans will try to lure Mr. Obama into sending in ground troops. If he does, there is a high likelihood of things going wrong, which will only help the Republicans in 2016. The GOP has cards to play on Iran, Syria and ISIS, but sadly, they may only be playing politics, positioning the Democrats for a failure that cannot be explained or papered over in the 2016 election.

The Vandenberg precedent is not a part of our Constitution, so there is nothing illegal about the Republicans abandoning it. It is also a good thing to review principles and historical precedents to see if they are still useful. But the precedents the GOP are so busy abandoning are the guidelines established years ago to allow our representatives to work together, despite their differences, for the good of this country.

This new, more politicized approach will hurt us all.

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