Oman is not an epicenter of chaos. Protests for pluralism do not abound and political power structures remain intact. Sultan Qaboos has either proved himself as the only benevolent monarch in The Middle East or he is so tyrannically restrictive that his regime has cut off any mention of his people’s unrest from the outside world. Most likely it is the former. Small-scale protests occurred in the port city of Sohar, but only to demand higher wages and more jobs. It was as if the Omani people caught wind of the events in Tunisia and Egypt only to say, “hey we can fly that kite, but we don’t really want to.”
I was not in Oman when the “Arab Spring” began and I have not been back since I left Muscat late last August. I read the NY times and watch MSNBC but I don’t get any information about the place I once called home. Violence sells on TV, so Oman doesn’t. My contacts in Muscat all say life is proceeding with relative normalcy and little is discussed regarding civil strife and rebellion. Oman is resting, and moving and praying under the time honored political guise of Sultan Qaboos. To the West and North East however, life has been distorted irrevocably.
A terminally ill regime in Syria prepares for an assault on its own people to restore a bitter status quo. Assad is not only fighting a courageous and rebellious populace but he is also being overrun by an idea for social equality. The fervent desire for egalitarianism does not perish in the face of repression but only builds as a situation becomes increasingly dire. He will kill to keep his power but change is inevitable. Unfortunately, so is bloodshed. Bahrain is also swelling with a demand for reorganized institutional structures. No longer are Arabs going to passively tolerate minorities oppressing majorities and they will no longer allow the interests of a fewer population to be forced out to the fringe of society. “Arab Springs” will lead to “Arab Winters” as social change produces winners and losers. With the awareness of such a struggle in our newspapers and our minds, how can America balance her strategic interests while openly and actively supporting humanitarian efforts to preserve life? To what extent should we get involved and to what extent are we already involved?
To answer these questions and more I took a position interning on the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Richard G. Lugar’s office. I got to spend time speaking with Senator Lugar, also a Denison University graduate and his professional staffers. Experts on Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya tasked me with attending events at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace, The Brookings Institute, various meetings around the DC area including interviews with certain non-profits seeking RGL’s blessing and most interestingly, hearings conducted inside the Senate Dirksen building room 419, The SFRC Hearing room. I also answered the phones and had a splendid time working for the committee.
As a political science major one learns a great deal about how our government formulates policies and subsequently conducts their actions abroad. Some of these lessons held true and others I acquired for the first time while working on Capitol Hill. Congressional power and Presidential power are indeed, as Ed Corwin suggests, divided in Constitutional rhetoric through an “invitation to struggle” regarding the right to conduct American foreign policy. Political scientists consistently describe our government as being comprised of “two presidencies”. That is, a disjointed and argumentative one within our borders and a successful one abroad. These theories allude to the idea that the President reigns supreme when conducting foreign policy.
The perception that Congress lags behind the Executive, gathering up all of the facts, after the fact, seems to be relatively accurate in terms of crisis policy enacted abroad. However, Senator Richard G. Lugar’s office serves as a powerful reminder that members of Congress are not limited in their ability to effect foreign policy decisions just because they can’t pass substantive legislation to commit troops abroad at a moments notice. Rather, RGL’s historical record, namely in the Philippians, and his current stance on US involvement in the “Arab Spring” suggests that senator’s who act in an informed and deliberate manner have the ability to influence foreign policy in a number of dynamic and non-legislative ways. Including but not limited too, congressional diplomacy, executive-legislative consultations and the framing of public and elite opinion. My time in Lugar’s office was not spent around foreign diplomats, members of Obama’s advisory team or even writers for The Washington Post. However, I did catch glimpses of these kinds of influential matters taking place. Embassies representing China, Japan, various African and Middle Eastern countries and even rising political figures from South America tried to get a face to face with Lugar or a member of his professional staff. I know this because I transferred the phone calls.
Capitol Hill revolves around relationships. Trust and reciprocity mean allot in securing deals and making agreements. Nobody has built a better empire of confidence in the US Senate than Richard G. Lugar. His cool and collected demeanor combined with his ability to address even the most inflamed issues with a patiently informed opening statement make him a highly respected member of the government on both sides of the aisle. His charisma is the kind that inspires loyalty. This is evident in his highly qualified staff. I had the pleasure of spending my days socializing and learning from these individuals whose connections in their professional areas of interest and academic wherewithal are the hidden arteries of US diplomacy abroad. Congressional staff in most committees work in a relatively bi-partisan fashion and in some cases Majority and Minority sides share a staff. Foreign Relations is quite the opposite. Republicans and Democrats each maintain a separate team of staffers who may or may not choose to share ideologies or policy goals. This separation of offices makes reaching across the isle a vital task in maintaining the significance of the Foreign Relations Committee. No senator has done a better job at fostering working relationships between Committee members than Senator Lugar.
Staffers are increasingly involved with analyzing policy proposals, drafting legislation, and even writing speeches. Mostly, I witnessed meetings with various non-profit firms seeking USAID (United States Agency for International Development) funds and asking for the Senator’s blessing to bolster their reputation and chance of getting more money. Due to the immense quantity of these factions, staffers are tasked with sifting through worthy and unworthy organizations to be affirmed by RGL. Two questions are asked in these meetings: one, how much money did you receive last year and what did you do with it, two, how much are you asking for this year? The non-profit representative that can answer these questions in a clear, concise and positive manner with proper evidence of change made in the world gets the okay. In essence, non-profits can be very profitable if they use the government’s money, our money, wisely. Treaties and consultations are no longer where the Senate’s power resides. Affirmation of appropriations is the new Colt 45.
The professional staff is not a think tank. Jobs are concerned with direct policy initiatives. As one staffer told me, the guy who has all the knowledge in the world about a specific demographic is a very knowledgeable man and should be paid attention to. The guy who doesn’t do a lifetime worth of research but is able to put an idea into practice by garnering the right funding and political will… the guy who sets up a school in Gaza or a hospital in Baghdad… he is to be respected.
This hard-nose stance to promote political action and not just political rhetoric is rooted in what another staffer called the classification of priorities. Hundreds of lobbyist groups, PR firms and just plain passionate people have causes that they want the Senate to fight for. The difference between those groups or individuals that get money and support and those who don’t is not only contained in their ability to clearly and accurately deliver their message in a single business meeting. After a pitch has been made, staffers have an obligation to place requests for Senatorial approval in three broad categories: Must do, Want to do, Should do. A Situation where US security is at stake concerning either personnel or capitol often gets placed in the Must do pile. We must protect our own interests in areas where we serve to loose the most as a result of inaction; this necessarily includes life and property. Economic prosperity generally falls into the Want to do pile. We want to secure oil pipelines and we want to secure trade relations with our allies. When the line between making money and preserving the lives of our troops gets blurred, foreign policy gets ugly. Unfortunately, humanitarian aid to non-US citizens is generally a Should do opportunity. For better or for worse, the government has a way of confronting the way things should be and ignoring such a normative dream by acting consistently with regard to the way things are. It seems, that the international system is vexing enough as it is. There are sometimes, a few exceptions to this rule. Few and far between are the political idealists, visionaries who choose to step outside the status quo and force change in the world. Senators, Secretaries of State, and even Presidents can produce a unique but fleeting historical record of individuals trying to do something different on an international-systemic level. Lugar’s domestic media campaign to push Ronald Regan against supporting the dictator Marcos in the Philippians is a splendid example. In time, we will have the same perspective regarding our leader’s current actions in The Middle East.
America’s capacity to re-align an element of the axis of evil has been tested and balanced in Iraq, at the dire cost of time, money and life. Full-scale regime change should not be on the US Army’s to do list for some time. Nevertheless, the United States is at war in Libya. We are not at war in Bahrain or Syria and we were never at war in Egypt of Tunisia. We have no official boots on the ground in Libya, just bombs and ruble stamped with our jet trails. Strategically hitting targets with a missile carried inside a drone-plane manned from a computer station housed in Langley, VA, simply does not register with the American public as an act of war like occasions that lead to coffins being unloaded from a cargo plane. I am not against humanitarian efforts abroad and for that matter, efforts to oust evil, egomaniacal dictators. I am not against the Obama administration’s initiative to act in situations where we have the ability to enforce change and to resign our military might to moving speeches for places that we simply can’t afford to physically get involved in. Like Saddam Hussein, Col. Mummar Kaddafi had isolated himself and his regime from the international system making a campaign to kill him, a lightly contested issue. Bashar al-Assad and Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa on the other hand have powerful allies. The situation as it is, dictates our actions.
America should not be content with this explanation for the formulation of American foreign policy. We need more transparency from the Obama administration. Why are we at war in Libya and what exactly are we doing there? If a public statement isn’t viable then at least confront Congress. Repeatedly, as I sat in front a pixilated calendar depicting the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s calendar of events, the Executive Business Meeting to update the SFRC on Libya came up postponed. Day after day Obama dodges the firing squad. Is it that he is truly an irreconcilable, a believer in the ineffective leaky squeaky lumbering of Congressional deference? Is he a proponent of the imperial presidency and a dogged avoider of anything to fetter the power of his office? No, I think an explanation for the White House’s tiptoe around the War Powers Act is far more human. That is, somebody made an ill-informed decision and doesn’t know how to explain him or herself. We have undoubtedly bombed Libya into necessary reconstruction and we don’t like any of the front-runners for a non-Islamist egalitarian regime. Most likely because such a promising Westernized political party doesn’t exist. An expensive re-furbishing is at our doorstep and our only hope is to take on more tenants. Germany? Italy? Not likely in light of Greece’s default. The leader of the free-world is between a rock and hard place; a milieu of un-informed decisions made a hundred miles above Libya on his left, a curious and pissed off Congress on his right. The only thing left to do is let substantive policies hover around Libya until a viable political outlet for U.S. funds presents itself. Otherwise, goodbye Hillary, and hello Secretary Kerry.
My opinions may or may not reflect those of Richard Lugar and his professional experts. I do not speak on their behalf as they are far more informed than I am. I want to thank RGL and those individuals on the Foreign Relations committee staff that opened my eyes to a snippet of our government’s inner-workings. I learned a lot.
Lugar is facing a less-than formidable opponent in the upcoming Indiana primary. A less qualified individual riding the coattails of a nationwide referendum hell-bent on ousting the incumbent, Murdock won’t win because he can do Lugar’s job better. He only has a chance because a lot of Hoosiers are fed up with the economy and fed up with the government in general. Indiana voters may fail to understand the complexity of appropriations allocations to non-profit organizations, the gravity of confirming the right ambassadors for our embassies abroad, the learned nuances involved in refining foreign policy non-legislatively and the importance of foreign policy oversight. In doing so, we would loose a true American patriot and a time honored public servant. America needs partisanship in working relationships fostered by trusted and informed leaders. America needs Richard G. Lugar and Indiana needs to make the right decision. Get out and vote in the primary.
No comments:
Post a Comment