So if the Democrats win one or both houses of Congress and get back on the road to power, ending divided government, will there be a big transformation? The Christian Science Monitor doesn’t think so:
In poll after poll, prospective voters name Iraq as the No. 1 issue in the upcoming midterm elections.
So if voters tip one or both Houses of Congress out of Republican control, what impact would that have on the US war effort in Iraq and, more generally, on American foreign policy?
Democrats could conceivably view such an election outcome as a mandate for asserting a markedly different course in Iraq than the one President Bush has set.
But don’t expect too much, most experts say.
For one thing, Democrats are not of one mind on what to do about Iraq. And while committees chaired by Democrats might hold more meetings and call more testifiers critical of some White House policies, Mr. Bush would still retain the power of the presidential bully pulpit.
In addition, Bush’s foreign policy in the second term has already evolved in a direction – away from unilateralism and toward greater cooperation – that suits both Bush’s political opponents and moderates in his own party, some analysts say.
For others, the differences between Bush and the Democrats on the big foreign-policy issues are really a matter of details and not starkly black and white.
“My hunch is that there wouldn’t be a large change in American foreign policy with a divided government because there really hasn’t been a deep division over the overall direction of that policy,” says Julian Zelizer, a specialist in foreign policy and contemporary American politics at Boston University.
“It’s ironic because the rhetoric has been so fierce,” Mr. Zelizer adds. “But there is general consensus on the war on terror, and even on Iraq it’s principally a matter of specifics – for example, the exit strategy and how to handle the Iraqi government. It’s not, ‘the president says stay’ versus ‘the Democrats say get out now.’ “
Of course, in his campaign stops President George Bush is suggesting the differences are close to that. But Zelizer and others quoted in the CSM article are correct (one reason why Bush’s rhetoric could backfire with some voters who might resent the characterization). One more likely impact will be the accentuation between the DLC and liberal factions of the Democratic party on Iraq and several other core issues.
Meanwhile, Kiko’s House offers this take on what will happen if the U.S. withdraws.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.