There was a time when people like Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, and George H.W. Bush represented the right-wing of the foreign policy Establishment. Yeah, sure, there were plenty of citizens to their right in the John Birch Society or various anti-communist organizations. There were generals/politicians like George Wallace’s running mate Curtis LeMay who never saw a problem that couldn’t be nuked. Some people saw Nixon and Kissinger as savvy “realists” who were able to navigate a middle path between the more pacifist elements of the left-wing and the more fever-brained emotionalism of their base. In fact, most of the National Security Council over the last thirty-five years has been made up of Kissinger-apprentices, regardless of what party they’ve served. You could almost say that Nixon and Kissinger provided a framework that has persevered since Ford left office, and which has formed the based for what we consider ‘normal’ American foreign policy.
It’s a policy that I, and most of the left, have found wanting, but it’s familiar, like an old baseball mitt. Prior to 9/11 few people questioned why we periodically ramped up to invade a Grenada or a Panama, or why we were expanding NATO eastward, or why new American bases were cropping up in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and Central Asia. Those of us who opposed these policies (or, in the case of NATO, questioned them) were definitely in the minority within a Democratic Party Establishment that was operating on Kissingerian terms.
So much has changed. The New START Treaty that the Obama administration has negotiated is being opposed by the Senate Republicans, and therefore will probably not be ratified. Yet, the GOP foreign policy Establishment supports it, as was evident when Obama recently discussed the treaty with the press.
More interesting than the comments, though, were the three men flanking the president at the time: Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, and Henry Kissinger, all veterans of modern Republican presidents, and members in good standing of Republican Foreign Policy Elder Statesmen, at least by the standards of the Republican establishment.
The point Obama and his team wanted to emphasize, of course, is that this treaty enjoys broad bipartisan support, just so long as one overlooks the Senate Republican caucus. It didn’t matter; the GOP votes that count are the ones that refuse to even consider the consequences of their conduct.
No one questions that the leader of the GOP foreign policy Establishment in the Senate is Richard Lugar of Indiana. He serves as the Ranking Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he has been a true leader on the critical issues related to securing nuclear materials in a post-Soviet world. Here’s Lugar talking to his colleagues:
LUGAR: Please do your duty for your country. We do not have verification of the Russian nuclear posture right now. We’re not going to have it until we sign the START treaty. We’re not going to be able to get rid of further missiles and warheads aimed at us. I state it candidly to my colleagues, one of those warheads…could demolish my city of Indianapolis — obliterate it! Now Americans may have forgotten that. I’ve not forgotten it and I think that most people who are concentrating on the START treaty want to move ahead to move down the ladder of the number of weapons aimed at us.
But his colleagues either disagree that it is their duty to safeguard the country against nuclear attack and the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials, or they have some higher priority than their duty. We might expect the opposition party to be a little reluctant to hand the president a foreign policy accomplishment that he can put in his cap, but we’re talking about nukes here. Isn’t there a certain point where politics ends and the interests of the country begin?
This isn’t being held up as some bargaining chip. There is no clearly articulated ideological opposition to the treaty. But, evidently, the old foreign policy Establishment has no pull, no credibility, with the current breed of Republican senator.
I’ve been saying that these folks are worse than anything we’ve ever seen before. This is just proof of it in one area. But it’s just as true in every other area.