Yesterday's election was notable
for many reasons -- rejection of President Barack Obama's agenda, the largest opposition
pick up in 80 years, the perks of incumbency outweighed by anti-establishment
sentiment among voters. Also notable is that although the country is
fighting two wars and foiled
a terrorist plot just days before the election, national security had almost no
place in the contest. To the extent national security was even mentioned, it
was in terms of our strategic vulnerability due to massive debt.
But now that the dust is settling
on the dimensions of Republican victory, what is it likely to mean for the wars
we are fighting? The president has picked up support for winning the wars,
although the president himself is hesitant to use the word. Republicans elected
yesterday will be concerned about the cost of the wars, but they are basically
Jacksonians. They will provide the votes for the president to persevere, and to
reverse his damaging timeline for drawing down forces in Afghanistan.
Walter Russell Mead perfectly
captured the principled, strong armed, anti-establishment populism of this line
of thinking in U.S. foreign policy. His article on the Jacksonian
Tradition in the Winter 1999/2000 issue of The National Interest should be
required reading for anyone wanting to understand where the 112th Congress is
likely headed. The president himself might also want to read former President George W. Bush's
soon-to-be-released memoir, in which he considers a premature drawdown of
troops in Iraq to have been one of his biggest mistakes.
Where the election will complicate
President Obama's war policies is that moderate Democrats were
turned out of the House in large numbers; the president has a Democratic caucus
in the House significantly more liberal than the Democratic Party. This could
limit the president's ability to let slide his end game for Afghanistan,
especially if he is forced to trim his sails on other liberal shibboleths.
But the president is not going to
carry liberal Democrats on the wars whether or not he sticks to his
politically-driven 2011 drawdown. "Ending combat operations" in Iraq has not
been the improvement in security the president promised, as Tuesday's
bombings sadly illustrate, and the president can ill afford such an
outcome in "the good war." Liberal disaffection was less a problem for
Democrats than the stampede of independents to the right; moderating his timeline
to achieve the objectives of the war would likely appeal to them.
Working across the aisle on the
wars may help build confidence between the White House and Republicans, providing a basis for compromise on other pressing issues, like
debt reduction and entitlement reform. Americans like divided government. We
are a people made great by distrust of our own government, a fact the
Washington establishment often forgets.
Perhaps the lesson Democrats ought
most to take from yesterday's drubbing (and Republicans from the unsuccessful
bids by some of our most divisive candidates) is Thomas Jefferson's caution
that great innovations should not be forced by slim majorities. A desire for
consensus is fundamental to our political culture, probably the result of our
great diversity. As a European once pointed out to me, "you Americans prize
individuality, but you all dress alike."
Congressional Republicans
are off to a good start with House Speaker John Boehner's
poignant decline to grandstand, instead taking the message that voters want
Washington to get to work. And much work needs to be done to bring President
Obama's national security policies into better alignment with our interests.
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