index

All the attention has been placed on how the Republican takeover of the Senate will impact the country, but little coverage has been paid to how this changes U.S. foreign policy.

Now that Republicans control the House and Senate, this change will dramatically alter how the president conducts foreign policy, especially with regard to Iran and ISIS.

American University assistant professor Guy Ziv stated, “This will create much more difficulty for President Obama to make the kind of progress that he’s wanted to see in both the Iranian negotiations – Iran’s nuclear negotiations – and the Israeli/Palestinian peace process,” said Ziv, who teaches classes on foreign policy and international negotiations. “Both of those issues have regrettably been used over the years as a partisan football on Capitol Hill.”

The biggest issue in which the president and Republicans disagree is over Iran’s nuclear ambition.  Voanews reported, talks on Iran’s nuclear program are scheduled to end later this month, with international negotiators working to convince Iran to limit its atomic activities in exchange for easing some economic sanctions.

Many Senate Republicans are wary of a deal that allows Tehran to continue enriching any uranium, but Obama already has the authority to waive U.S. sanctions without congressional approval.

Republicans want a more forceful approach in limiting Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

Cato Institute analyst Justin Logan stated, “There’s some prospect that a large Republican wave and takeover of the Senate could raise the prospect of sanctions bills against Iran without that waiver authority,” Logan said. “But that requires Congress to sort of take responsibility for the policy and leave its fingerprints on the policy. And historically,

[it has] been very wary of doing that.”

The other continuous issue is the president will have to articulate a coherent strategy on how he plans to confront ISIS.  The air campaign has not degraded or destroyed ISIS, and the president has been extremely reluctant to introduce U.S. ground forces to the region.

Republicans have been critical of his approach, with Senator John McCain a vocal critic of the president’s handling of the crisis especially the slow response to arming moderate Syrian rebels.  McCain could push the administration into taking a more active role, and the president needs Republican support for any continued military support against ISIS.

Atlantic Council analyst Robert Manning stated, “I think on the security side, you are likely to see Senator McCain taking over the Armed Forces Committee in the Senate, and I think that may be contentious in terms of defense spending and some of our military activities in the Middle East and elsewhere.”

This is not the only challenge the president has to deal with as he faces threats from Russia, China, and how the plans to remove U.S. forces from Afghanistan as not to replicate the situation in Iraq.

With the midterm election over and now with Republicans in charge of both the Senate and the House this will severely weaken the president as he will not have Senator Harry Reid blocking any continuous votes on variety of foreign policy related matters.

In the weeks ahead we will how the president interacts with Republicans and vise verse regarding a host of foreign policy challenges confronting the United States.