Suchergebnisse

Two weeks ago was the 40th anniversary of President Nixon's dramatic resignation. He did so against his own will, in order to avoid the certainty of impeachment as a result of the Watergate case. This event, together with the traumatic defeat and withdrawal from Vietnam that preceded it, resulted in a dramatic loss of trust in the Executive, followed by strong legislative action to limit its powers. It also revealed the growing partisan polarization that has characterized the politics of the following four decades.Today we may be living the climax of this polarization, as Congress is unable to pass badly-needed legislation on immigration, energy and infrastructure funding, to name a few. Indeed, not even the presence of 40,000 unaccompanied Central American children at the border is sufficiently dramatic to bring about some kind of consensual action. At the same time, President Obama is being sued by the House leadership for abuse of power, and the media are irresponsibly talking about possible impeachment, the ultimate use of legislative power against a democratically elected President.The transformative President has fulfilled or at the very least addressed most of the platform under which he was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012. Obstruction in Congress, his own bad foreign policy decisions and constant complaints from the left wing of his own party have resulted in low approval ratings (around 40%) by a frustrated public that has, for the most part, tuned out of politics. This will no doubt have consequences for the coming mid-term elections, when the majority of voters will stay home, giving an advantage to the militant extremes on both sides of the ideological spectrum.Gridlock in government is nothing new. In fact, the fathers of the Constitution preferred Congress to "muddle through" rather than being too pro-active. Incremental, slow change was preferable to sweeping reforms. Yet this 113th Congress, now in its long August recess before its return to a full-fledged electoral campaign in September, is probably unique in its paralysis. There are not only deep divisions between the two Houses, each dominated by one party, but also within the House of Representatives itself, where the GOP has a majority of seats but is so internally divided that it has had to withdraw many of its own leadership-introduced bills for lack of votes from its own party.This Do-Nothing-Congress that left town on August 1st for a five-week recess is the least productive in History: Congressional productivity is down from 151 in the previous 112th Congress to 142; the originally "Do-Nothing Congress" of 1947-48 passed 906 laws.Nothing seems to be sufficiently urgent or dramatic enough to bring the GOP legislators to a consensus, not even the unprecedented border crisis, where 40,000 unaccompanied migrant children from Central America are amassed in military bases and other government agencies at the southern border, awaiting due process. The House leadership was ready to pass a bill to provide a small part of the funding the President had requested to help him address the surge of newly arrived immigrants, but it did not have the votes. The Tea Party, on the other hand, opposed the funding and wanted to introduce its own bill to speedily deport the children and to rescind the President's authority to decide whether to deport or not certain undocumented immigrants from earlier waves of immigration.Late in the afternoon of their last day in the Capitol when all bags were packed and representatives were ready to leave, Speaker John Boehner announced he was ready to withdraw his bill since he didn't have the votes, and let the recess begin. But Tea Party favorites Steven King and Michele Bachman demanded a vote on both measures. Finally, at the eleventh hour, Boehner compromised: both bills were introduced and passed by a narrow vote. They are at this point insignificant, and very unlikely to become laws since the Senate will not consider them. But the point was made: the Tea Party's main goals is not solving any problems, but instead keepconstraining presidential powers to the point of total ineffective government. They are succeeding to a large extent, even if Obama has been quite deft at using his executive authority of implementation to break free from the imposed legislative shackles.Dysfunction in government is the new normalcy in the nation's capital. These bills were only a modest attempt to deal with the crisis of the day, but the acrimonious debate brought into relief a bigger systemic failure: the inability of Congress, since 2007, to pass a comprehensive overhaul of Immigration law. Once the Senate passed it last summer, it was expected that the House may come up with its own proposal, which would have been a series of smaller bills to solve the problem piecemeal, thereby satisfying different constituencies with a mixture of more border security, more workers' permits and other special visas, and the granting of legal status to the 11 million undocumented.Unlike the year 2007, when G.W. Bush had expressed support for Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation but could not muster enough consensus, this time around (2013-2014) it was supposed to be different. For the first time the concept had widespread support from all the very powerful interest groups concerned: corporations, labor unions, the Christian Evangelical right and immigration advocates. But it was halted by the Tea Party in the House and no legislation was passed.It is this vacuum, among others, that the Executive has been trying to fill through administrative measures and executive decrees. The President used his prosecutorial discretion to solve some aspects of the enormously complex issue of dealing with 11 million undocumented immigrants, most of whom have lived and worked in the US for ten, twenty, or even thirty years. One example is the President's policy directive that provided temporary relief from deportation and study/work authorization to young people brought here illegally by their parents between certain dates, and under certain conditions (DACA). Lately, Obama has expressed some interest in extending DACA to the children's families, causing more Tea party outrage and increasing their attempts to stop him.To strike a balance and to give more legitimacy to his unilateral decision to solve that part of the problem, the President has applied to the letter the pre-existing immigration law to deport (other) immigrants through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. He has deported more immigrants than any other president before him (360,000 in 2013 alone), earning him the sobriquet of "Deporter-in-chief" and the antipathy of immigrant advocate groups.During the latest crisis of children at the border, Speaker Boehner expressed his "frustration and his concern" with the situation, and quite cynically called on Obama to "take steps to secure the border and return the children to their home countries", adding that the President "didn't need Congressional action to do that". Given that the Speaker is suing the President (just a political gesture, since he has no legal standing to do so) for over-stepping his Constitutional powers, his hectoring makes even less sense. In any case, his frustration was misdirected: Obama had asked Congress to approve funding for this operation and a Republican bill was ready to be introduced, but the Speaker himself was struggling to get the Tea Party votes he needed to pass it. This sort of dysfunction is a weakness the Republican Party will need to address in order to succeed in future elections.The November mid-term election will be critical: according to the latest polls, Republicans have around an eighty per cent chance to win the six seats they would need for a majority in the Senate. With both Houses in Republican hands, the President will not only lose the minimum control he now has to shape the agenda but he will also find it very hard to keep in place the policies that he is already implementing.If we add to that the problematic challenges he is now faced with on several foreign policy fronts, none of which can be solved in the short term, a Republican win becomes almost certain, not only in 2014 but also perhaps in the 2016 presidential election. But in order to seal those wins, Republicans will need two fundamental elements they lack now: party unity and a positive agenda. Professor Maria Fornella-Oehninger, Old Dominion UniversityVirginia, U.S.A.

In a previous note on these same pages, we made reference to Obama's unpredictable use of executive power and his tendency to overuse it for certain domestic policies, while deferring to the military and foreign policy establishmenton issues he is ambivalent about, such as the international use of force. We also alluded to his tendency to isolate himself and rely excessively on his own judgment in shaping policy, to the detriment of his relations with staff, cabinet and other leaders. The long-drawn decision to seek Congressional approval before striking Syria is a case study of these proclivities.After resisting calls for intervention in Syria by Senate Republican "hawks"and foreign policy specialists since 2011, a year ago Obama conceded that, in spite of his aversion to intervene in "sectarian struggles",certain actions such as the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime against the opposition would constitute a "red line" which, once crossed, would automatically bring about an armed response by the United States. This week he had to face the consequences of his own words.Whenrobust evidence of the use of sarin gas by Bashar Al Assad's forces in rebel occupied territory was produced, the President had no choice but to spendthelast week of the month of Augustfrantically building a case for immediate intervention. Acting simultaneously as Chief Executive, policy shaper and his own spokesman, he used several venues, including an NPR interview, to announce to the American people that the time had come to act.But while Secretary of State John Kerry made a compelling speech on the need to act swiftly to punish the "moral obscenity" committed by the Assad regime, Obama appeared much more circumspect in his appeals to the American people. His early words conveyed both his outrage at the disproportionate actions by Assad as well as his empathy with the war-weary American citizens. In private, he confided he had qualms both about the legality and the political legitimacy of military action. In public, his argument focused on the violation of an international convention prohibiting the use of chemical weapons and the absolutely unavoidable duty to enforce it. But the fact that UN inspectors had not completed their field report on the attack, coupled with the refusal of the UN Security Council to consider armed action, gave him pause and forced him to confront his own doubts once again.In the meantime, momentum was building in the United States where, according to press reports, it was all but certain there would be a military strike to "punish and deter" the Syrian regime, by Labor Day weekend. GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham were vocal in their support of intervention but demanded more than just a punitive strike and showed some impatience towards the President's pondering an action that should have been decided long ago.Abroad, Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia were in favor of the US action. As it is widely known, Russia was against it and that is why the US had to bypass the UN Security Council where Russia has veto power. While NATO allies all offered strong support (indeed, both France and Britain were the first to insist on support for the rebels a year ago), Prime Minister David Cameron was delivered a strong blow when he lost a vote in the House of Commons, with some of his own backbenchers voting against intervention. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, facing a coming election and against the perennial background of German Basic Law constraints, had already told the President that Germany would stand in the sidelines, while offering moral support. The long shadow cast by the Iraqi war around the world once again became evident. But the French President, not required by the Fifth Republic Constitution to consult the legislature, and encouraged by France's recent successful actions in Mali and Libya, remained firm.By Friday, Obama's tortured deliberations came to an end as he abruptly changed courses. Against the advice of his National Security and political advisors team, he made a dramatic announcement from the Rose Garden: his decision on the need for a narrow punitive action against Syria had been made, he said, but he had decided to ask for Congressional authorization first. As Commander in Chief, and in spite of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, he is not obligated to do this. He thus appears to be shifting responsibility onto the legislature while simultaneouslybuying some time to explore diplomatic solutions in the upcoming G-20 summer.The cerebral constitutional law professor and the risk- taking politician in him have made a Faustian bargain. If Congress authorizes the use of force, he will have both legal and political cover for his action while at the same time fulfilling his moral duty of punishing a violator of the Chemical Weapons Convention and of Humanitarian law. If they vote No, he can just blame them for his own lack of action and use all the power of the Presidency on his domestic agenda.It is, in any case, a big gamble, one that has the potential of weakening him and turning him into a lame duck for the rest of his Presidency. The GOP is internally divided on many issues, among them foreign policy, where conservative ideologies run the gamut from minimalist /isolationist to neo-cons/regime- change interventionists and all the shades in-between. And the far left in Obama's own party is against intervention. So there is no guarantee he will get Congressional approval. The cost of losing this vote is enormous: it may set a strong precedent in diminishing Presidential prerogatives.To be fair to the President and his vacillating stance, this is not an easy decision. None of the world leaders have made a compelling public case for a strategic need of intervention in Syria. The proposed limited "punitive" strike will most likely be inconclusive: it will not deter further extreme actions by Assad, who has now been given time to disperse his military assets and capabilities. The strike will not significantly degrade his capacity to fight, and there will be little change in his main goal, namely, to destroy the opposition and regain total control of the country.This is a fight to the end by both sides. If overthrown, Assad and his Alawite supporters (as well as the Christians who have traditionally been under his protection) will be massacred. There are no desirable outcomes in this conflict. The rebels are divided and the biggest group is that ofthe jihadists with strong support of Al Qaeda. While Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel are on the side of the United States and want a moderate alternative to the Assad regime, Iran, to an extent Iraq, and Hezbollah in Lebanon are on the dictator's side (as, incongruously, is Venezuela). The Palestinian group Hamas, previously favoring Assad has now changed sides and is supporting the rebels. So in many ways this is a war by proxy that could become a generalized regional war. There is no indication that the President or anyone else has a political plan or a diplomatic effort in mind for the post-strike scenario.However, US inaction at this time undermines the security of its allies, especially Israel. Even though Netanyahu has adopted a "no comment" stance and hasn't, accordingly, said a word on this issue, other Israeli politicians are worrying out loud about the implications the US lack of resolve will have on other "red lines": Will the United States act when Iran crosses the nuclear threshold? Or will Israel find itself facing Iran alone?They bitterly remind themselves of Obama's speech in Jerusalem, in March this year, when he said in Hebrew: "Atem lo levad" ("You are not alone"). They are very skeptical, now more than ever, that the President will match his lofty rhetoric with action.In the United States the momentum is gone, Congress won't reconvene until September 9, and the President is using the last week of summer to energetically lobby House and Senate leaders and persuade skeptics through intelligence briefings. Urgent issues in the domestic agenda will thus have to be postponed.What no one, either at home or abroad denies, is that the credibility of the Presidency and with it, that of the United States, is at stake. International support for the operation is unlikely to improve. A negative vote by Congress will further weaken the President and may complicate the White House legislative agenda, where he will have to spend all his political capital and still,perhaps, fall short.In a keynote speech to the National Defense University earlier this year, Obama expressed the need to chart a new way in American foreign policy, one that would end the "perpetual wartime footing" that characterized the post 9-11 era, after G.W. Bush got a virtual blank check from Congress in the use of military force and intelligence gathering. So far, Obama has ended two protracted unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is clear he will not engage in regime change. But a new foreign policy strategy has not crystallized yet. There is no Obama doctrine, no overall framework to guide his decisions and give predictability to his actions.His whole approach to the Middle East, the most explosive region in the planet today, is misconceived. His tepid reaction to the Egyptian situation had already given some approximation of how reluctant he is about taking sides in conflicts in the region. Syrian use of chemical weapons has confirmed his ambivalence and exposed his indecision. At the same time, it has provoked a collapse of American credibility abroad, anduncertainty about its reliability as an ally. Regardless of what follows after this week, his hesitancy will have dire consequences for American foreign policy into the future.The larger problem that looms over the heads of world leaders and that few seem to acknowledge is that this is not about Syria or Egypt or Libya or Yemen or Tunisia as separate conflicts; it is a regional conflagration that has to be addressedcomprehensively, within the larger regional and international context. All major actors, whether it is Europe, Russia, or China and of course the United States, have a stake in the region and it is in their interest to define the rules of the game and together find an overall solution to this predicament.

Obama's governing style puzzles many people inside and outside the Beltway.In order to understand the 44th President's distinct, indeed, at times puzzling behavior, it is useful to go back to his biography. A Constitutional lawyer and professor who spend only one term in the Senate, and whose political experience came mainly from community organizing. The son of a white globe-trotting sociologist and a Kenyan professor, who spent his early years in Indonesia, and was later raised by his white grandparents in Hawaii. An introspective young man trying to find his way in the turbulent 1960s and ending up in Harvard law school, where he became president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. This minimalist biographical sketch contains many hints to help us analyze the way he governs. First and foremost, the president is an intellectual, a Constitutional scholar and a student of US history. He is also an admirer of Abraham Lincoln, arguably the most important yet problematic of US presidents. The first Black president in a country where racism has left an eternal imprint, he is deeply and constantly aware of his own historic role in American politics. Second, because of his particular heritage, he learned to move easily in different social settings but never quite felt he belonged in any of them. Paradoxically, even now, after five years in the highest office, he still seems uncomfortable with the daily give and take of inside-the-Beltway politics and avoids direct talks with the Republican leaders in House and Senate.This has played out for better or worse in his relations with Congress, his own staff and the public at large. Obama was elected by a broad coalition of white intellectuals, college students, women and ethnic minorities. He mesmerized them with his epic speeches and soaring rhetoric. He promised to undo much of the damage inherited from the Bush administration and was relatively successful, as proved by the fact of his re-election. However, his approach to policy making constantly raises eyebrows in the public as well as in Congress.The Left wonders why he hasn't closed the Guantanamo prison, why he allows the seemingly unlimited use of drones in war scenarios, and why he gives a free hand to the National Security Agency's spying on Americans. The Right accuses him of sins of commission and omission, from abuse of executive power (example: alleged cover-ups in Benghazi and AP scandals, or over-use of prosecutorial discretion and executive orders) to leading from behind in Libya and doing nothing in Syria. And Congress is surprised at his indifference and detachment: he introduces big ideas but does not get involved in the details; he lets legislators fight his battles and find their own way. He is not interested in developing personal ties or working relationships with them (something he also failed to do while he was a Senator).In his relation with the legislative branch, Obama is neither a salesman like Harry Truman nor an arm twister, like Lyndon B. Johnson. In sum, he does not play the Washington game. His two main venues for policy discussions are with his own expert staff and with large public audiences. The former he uses for in-depth study of the issue and lengthy debate on options; the latter, to get grassroots support for major policies (immigration, health care) and also to rail against Congress, to publicly blame it for its dysfunction and inaction. A case in point is the fundamental issue of gun-control. Obama, together with 90% of the public supported background checks after the Sandyhook and Aurora massacres, but the NRA stronghold on Congress killed the bill, with the President not being able to persuade even some Democrats to vote for it. Frustrated with what he sees as a dysfunctional Congress, his call for bipartisanship is enunciated as a royal wish, not something he is ready to roll up his sleeves and work for.His use of executive power is hard to predict and is often criticized for its incoherence, but a closer look reveals an inner logic. Always the Constitutional law professor, he abides by checks and balances, which explains his cool distance from legislators once a bill is being deliberated. However, he is ready to use executive orders to bypass Congress on core priorities which he has long decided will be part of his legacy, for example, on his decision this week to reduce greenhouse gases by 37% in a period of 7 years. He thinks strategically and on a case by case basis: in this case, the carbon reduction rules were announced together with a conditional approval to the building of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, a project strongly supported by Republicans and the public. But, he added, "only subject to review of its effects on carbon pollution". The announcement raised protests from both Right and Left, but seems measured to satisfy the center.On foreign and security policy, however, he defers to the establishment. One interpretation of this detachment is that once he became aware by secret daily briefings, of the intricacies of National Security and the immense power of the military-intelligence complex that naturally accompanies it, he decided leave it to the experts, his main focus being on "keeping the country safe" as he articulates it daily to his audiences. This is true on all defense issues except those that are personal to him, part of his envisioned legacy, such as disarmament. But his approach is clearly perceived as weakness by foreign leaders, as demonstrated by the reaction to self-admitted leaker Edward Snowden: the US indicted him for espionage, revoked his passport and asked for his extradition but both Hong Kong (pressed by Beijing) and Russia ignored the request.Obama's domestic policy legacy is quite in line with what he was elected to do both in his first and second term. Through his early action of getting Congress to pass a stimulus package, he saved the banking system and the automobile industry. Health reform was his next success. Today Immigration Reform has passed the Senate and is bound for the House. Failing to get Congress to pass his plan for environmental regulation, he has now done it through the EPA using a broad interpretation of the old Clean Air Act. At every step his actions were challenged and sent to the highest court which has for the most part ruled in his direction. Last week the Defense of Marriage Act was deemed unconstitutional, another triumph for the President and his base. Right now it is mainly his actions or inactions in foreign and defense policy that are being challenged by parts of the electorate, including a sizable part of his base.If Obama believes, as many devotees of Executive Power do, that presidents possess a vast reservoir of power that can be invoked at their discretion, then he preserves it carefully and uses it strategically, in pursuit of the "safety and well-being of the American people". His personal interpretation of American constitutional democracy seems to be: never forget the three first words of the Preamble, We the People, but use executive power to the full in order to save the Republic, even in contradiction to the written law, under the authority of what Thomas Jefferson called, the "laws of necessity, of self-preservation." These have to be redefined by every generation. For Lincoln, it was the inevitable suspension of certain rights during the civil war. History will judge whether Obama is governing according to the spirit of his time. Sobre el autorMaria Fornella-Oehninger - Old Dominion University