From Iran to Ukraine to the Israeli-Arab conflict to climate change, 2015 promises to present President Obama with new challenges as he seeks to pursue key foreign policy objectives in his last two years without being blocked by skeptical and frustrated Republicans – and some Democrats – on Capitol Hill.
With GOP control now extending to the U.S. Senate, the administration will have to contend with some of its harshest critics assuming the helm of important committees.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), in line to be the new Armed Services Committee chairman, has clashed repeatedly with the White House over its handling of the Syrian civil war, specifically what he views as an overcautious approach toward arming non-Islamist rebels, and the perception that the U.S. expects those rebels it does support to prioritize the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) over the campaign against the Assad regime.
McCain is also a leading opponent of the administration’s attempted “reset” with Moscow and – along with other senior Republicans including incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) – has criticized the administration for not imposing more and tougher sanctions than it has on President Vladimir Putin over his Ukraine intervention, and for not providing weapons to Ukraine.
On December 18 Obama signed into law the Ukraine Freedom Support Act, which was co-sponsored by Corker and the senator he replaces as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who will be the ranking member on the committee this year.
The legislation authorizes the president to impose sanctions on Russia’s arms exporting agency and natural gas provider, and to provide Ukraine with weapons to use against the Russian-backed separatists in the east.
But in a signing statement, Obama indicated he “does not intend to impose sanctions under this law” and that he would only use the new authorities it provides “if circumstances warranted.”
Another incoming committee chairman whose arrival will not be welcomed by the White House or the State Department is Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who is expected to return to the helm of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
For an administration that has made climate change a top priority, to have one of the Senate’s leading climate change skeptics chair that particular committee in a year when it hopes to push for a major binding global climate agreement could hardly be more exasperating.
One of the earliest clashes likely this year between the GOP-controlled Senate and administration will be over Iran’s nuclear programs.
Talks between Iran and the P5+1 negotiating group failed to reach a comprehensive nuclear agreement by a Nov. 24 deadline, and were extended by another seven months.
That development breathed new life into a Senate initiative – stalled earlier after the administration promised to veto it if passed – that would hold the threat of tougher sanctions over Iran’s head as an incentive to reach a deal deemed acceptable by the West.
The legislation enjoys substantial bipartisan support and there have been indications it will be taken up again early in the 114th Congress.
Another Iran-related measure, introduced by Corker last July, seeks to prevent the administration from implementing any deal between Iran and P5+1 – the U.S., France, China, Britain, Russia and Germany – without Congress’s approval.
Yet another piece of foreign policy legislation that could advance under the GOP-controlled Senate targets Hizbullah, the Iranian-sponsored Shi’ite terrorist group in Lebanon.
The Hizbullah International Financing Prevention Act passed in the House by 404 votes to zero last July, but stalled in the Senate Banking Committee. The senator expected to chair the committee this year, Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), was one of 57 co-sponsors of the Senate version of the legislation, so the measure is likely to move ahead.