There was a time when something like the Iran nuclear deal or the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade accord would have been thoughtfully evaluated by most members of the United States Congress.
There would, of course, be a core of ideologues on either side — people who had prejudged whatever was under consideration long before negotiators had finished their work, but in the middle one found a broad group of both Republican and Democratic legislators who were willing to evaluate deals on their merits, albeit starting from very different ideological places. Clearly those days are long past.
The congressional hearings on the Iran deal were sometimes painful to watch. At one point when Secretary of State John Kerry tried to explain to a Republican Congressman that understanding Iran’s concerns and goals was part of any successful negotiation the Congressman sneered “well La-De-Dah!” adding that he did not care what Iran thought about anything because “I am for America.”
The exchange brought to mind the unnamed cabinet secretary who told the writer and historian Henry Adams: “You can’t use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!” That was in 1869. There were moments when it was hard to credit much development of the Congressional mindset in the century and a half since.
Right now Congress is about 10 days into a two-month review period for the Iran deal. It is increasingly obvious, however, that for Republicans this has becomes a purely partisan issue. Perhaps this should not be surprising.
It has long been clear that many Republicans actually believe their own apocalyptic rhetoric about US President Barack Obama’s incompetence and mendacity. If one starts from the presumption that everything the administration does is always wrong and ill-intended, why would one believe the Iran deal was good, whatever its content?
Even some Democrats on the committees seemed genuinely baffled why the US had not simply imposed an agreement on Iran, preferably one that required it to free jailed Americans, stop funding anyone in the region whom America does not like and, ideally, recognise Israel. Repeated explanations from Kerry and the other witnesses that none of these things were up for discussion and that if they had been there would not have been any talks at all were usually brushed aside.
Trade accord
Not that Democrats don’t have their own policy blind spots. The biggest of these concerns trade, and its focus over the last few months has been the TPP. In some ways, the anger within Obama’s own party about the trade accord is even more exasperating than the Republican fury over Iran. In the latter case there is, at least, an agreement to consider. The ever-growing anger among Democrats at the 12-nation Asian trade deal is focused on an accord that does not actually exist.
Earlier this summer what should have been a fairly routine procedural vote to give Obama, like many presidents before him, so-called ‘fast track’ negotiating authority turned into a huge political showdown. Many Democrats deserted the president and the bill passed only because most Republicans supported it.
Under ‘fast-track’ Congress agrees to give treaties and other agreements an up-or-down vote without amendments. This is essential because if the House or Senate add a bunch of amendments, regardless of their content, negotiations with all of the other countries would have to start all over again.
Supporting fast-track does not imply support for the final deal. One can (and, in the past, many senators and representatives from both parties have) support the concept of fast-track but oppose whatever treaty or agreement the talks in question eventually produce.
Presidents need to tell their negotiating partners that Congress gets a say in these things — but they also need to be able to reassure those partners that Congress will not reopen every single clause painfully negotiated over a period of years. By moving to deny Obama fast-track authority Democrats are saying, in effect, that they don’t care what is in the final deal because they are going to be against it no matter what.
The opposition of Republicans to the Iran agreement and of Democrats to the TPP are rooted in each party’s core beliefs. Leaving aside their barely-disguised contempt for Obama, Republicans have long been sceptical of national security treaties.
Many feel that anything which restricts American power, particularly by constraining it within a multi-lateral system, is by definition bad. Democrats have long had a similar ideological aversion to trade deals, believing that these more-or-less inevitably end up costing American workers their jobs.
Both views are debatable but are so firmly rooted in the Republican and Democratic political DNA that arguing against them is futile. What has changed as core Republicans have become more conservative and core Democrats more liberal is that the number of people willing to give security agreements, trade treaties and any number of other measures a real hearing shrinks with each passing year.
It is another sign of the intense polarisation now gripping Washington — and another indication that the next president, whomever he or she may be, is likely to have almost as rough a ride as Obama.
Gordon Robison, a longtime Middle East journalist and US political analyst, teaches political science at the University of Vermont.
