• Submitted by: manso
• Politics and Government
• 12 / 13 / 2010

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The Internet publication Middle East Online has reproduced an article in The Nation about the challenges facing President Obama after the midterm elections.

The premise of the article, by Robert Dreyfuss, is that "the ascent to power of conservative hardliners in key committee chairmanships means that a crew of negotiations-hating, counterinsurgency-backing, weapons-system-promoting, Likud-following, START-bashing, Russia-fearing Islamophobes has the reins."

One such legislator is South Florida's own Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, whom Dreyfuss describes as "a militantly anti-Castro Cuban-American from Miami-Dade County who'll seek to ratchet up sanctions on Iran and North Korea, halt détente with Cuba and restore the lockstep US-Israeli mindmeld that prevailed during the Bush administration.

"She'll seek to slash the foreign aid budget for all countries not called Israel," Dreyfuss writes. "The Palestinian Authority must drop its conditions for negotiations, recognize Israel as a 'Jewish state,' clamp down on violent groups and end corruption -- or 'we should not give it one more dime,' she said recently."

"Since the election, she has called on Obama to 'rethink his "reset" policy with Russia and she said the US-Russia civilian nuclear agreement 'should be stopped.' She also railed against the 'dangerous behavior' of the presidents of Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador, who pose 'tangible risks to the security of our region.'"

"Ros-Lehtinen's power is limited, but she can generate political pressure on Obama," the article says. "Likely, Obama will find his ability to maneuver constrained, since foreign leaders, friend and foe, will wonder if the president is weakened or even a lame duck."

"But if Obama wants to ignore all that, for the most part he can, because the House has little or no direct leverage over foreign policy."

Source: /miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2010/12/