POLITICS-US: Senate Switch Poses Problems for Bush Foreign Agenda

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Analysis Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jun 5 2001 (IPS) - The impact of Wednesday’s formal installation of a Democratic majority in the US Senate likely will be greatest in the domestic domestic sphere but President George W. Bush’s hopes of steering US foreign policy in an evermore unilateralist direction also appear to have dimmed.

With Democrats in control of the Senate agenda and committees, Bush will find it far more difficult to push through Congress his ambitious plans to build a multi-billion-dollar national missile defence system (NMD) and abandon the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.

His environmental policies and energy programme – strongly criticised abroad for pushing supply rather than curbing demand – also face tougher opposition, particularly in light of recent opinion polls showing growing public dissatisfaction with the president’s positions.

Multilateral institutions – from the United Nations and international peacekeeping operations to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – can look forward to a much friendlier hearing in the Senate under the new Democratic leadership than under its Republican counterpart.

Wednesday marks the culmination of a transition process launched two weeks ago when Sen. James Jeffords, a moderate Republican from the tiny New England state of Vermont, stunned Washington by announcing his decision to become an independent and vote with the Democrats.

His move gave the Democrats a working majority in the Senate for the first time since 1995 and spelled the end of four months of Republican domination of both Congressional chambers, as well as the White House.

Jeffords, in announcing his move, said, “Looking ahead, I can see more and more instances where I’ll disagree with the president on very fundamental issues – of the direction of the judiciary, tax and spending decisions, missile defence, energy, and the environment, and a host of other issues, large and small.”

His defection was seen as a major blow to Bush who, consistent with the right-wing agenda which he brought to office, succeeded during his first months in ramming through Congress a ten-year, 1.3-trillion-dollar tax cut.

But now, Bush finds that the rest of his agenda – especially his hopes for appointing right-wing jurists to the federal judiciary, for gaining approval for his energy plan and the vast sums needed for NMD – look vulnerable.

At home, liberal senators including old warhorses Edward Kennedy, Tom Harkin, and Patrick Leahy will gain control of key committees from which they will not only be able to block major Bush initiatives, but also will be poised to raise popular issues, such as support for family farmers, increases in the minimum wage and patients’ rights, which the administration would rather not discuss.

The same goes for foreign affairs, where changes in committee and subcommittee chairs are sure to have a significant impact on US policy.

On the Foreign Relations Committee, for example, Sen. Joseph Biden, a liberal and multilateralist, will take the gavel from arch-unilateralist, Jesse Helms. While the two worked closely in recent years on the payment of US arrears to the United Nations, they are far apart on almost every major issue before the committee.

Biden is a supporter not only of the UN, but also of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ABM treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and increased US funding for population and environment programmes.

He has not shied from sharp criticism of Bush’s Asian policy, which he regards as insufficiently conciliatory toward China and “dumbfounding” for its stated scepticism over South Korea’s “sunshine policy”. Nor has he flinched from decrying Pentagon pressure to withdraw US troops from NATO operations in the Balkans.

As chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, Biden, who has presidential ambitions, will occupy an especially influential perch from which to expound on his policy differences and shape the legislative agenda.

Bush – and his hawkish Pentagon chief, Donald Rumsfeld – will find little solace in the new chair of the Armed Forces Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, who replaces Sen. John Warner.

Like Biden, Levin has raised key questions about NMD and, in a speech last month, appeared to rule out any possibility that such a system could be deployed before 2005. In the same speech, he rejected virtually every argument made by the administration to support early deployment and endorsed a warning last year by the intelligence community that NMD would increase tensions with Russia and China and set off an arms race from China to India and Pakistan.

“Combined with Europe’s seemingly growing opposition to NMD, I don’t see the plans advancing very far very fast under the kind of attack the Democrats are already mounting against NMD,” says one Congressional aide whose boss supports deployment.

Sen. Paul Sarbanes, who has good contacts in the World Bank, will take over the Banking Committee from Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, a neo- liberal ideologue with a history of scepticism about the Bank’s efforts to alleviate poverty and a foe of last year’s drive to reduce the debts of the world’s poorest countries. Sarbanes has also been much more sympathetic to rescue packages for emerging- market economies faced with financial crises.

Aid policy may also be influenced by Leahy’s takeover of the Senate Foreign Operations Subcommittee. Leahy has long championed putting tough human rights conditions for military aid as well as sharp increases in aid for international health, particularly to fight infectious diseases. As subcommittee chair, he will gain much more procedural leverage to pursue those aims than when the Democrats were in a minority.

Jeffords’s defection has also sparked speculation that others may soon follow, including Republican Sen. John McCain, Bush’s primary campaign rival. Before Jeffords’s announcement, McCain had reportedly flirted with declaring himself an independent in preparation for a run against Bush in 2002. Three other New England Republicans, with constituencies similar to Jeffords, have also hinted that they do not share the administration’s right-wing propensities.