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| Bushfire on the Hill | | |
The inevitable has happened. The Republicans have taken a drubbing in Tuesday's mid-term Congressional polls, losing their majority in the House and barely managing to keep pace with the Democrats in a neck-and-neck race for control over the Senate. It's a remarkable comeback for the Democrats who lost majority on the Hill in 1994 and did not appear anywhere near reversing the decline of their political fortune two years ago when US President George W Bush, stumping pollsters and critics, secured a second term in office. Of course, between then and now a lot has changed, not least America's rising discomfort with the war in Iraq that has begun to go horribly wrong as Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and his strategists, including senior generals, grope in the dark for ways and means to stabilise a situation fast slipping into an all-out Shia-Sunni civil war. Apart from anti-incumbency that can only be expected in a President's sixth year in office, other issues, too, have contributed to the upsetting of the Republican apple cart: For instance, lurid details of scandals on the Hill and flawed domestic policies and initiatives, not to mention the faltering war on terror best exemplified by what's happening in Afghanistan. But with Mr Bush leading the Republican campaign from the front, the verdict must ultimately be seen as a referendum against his policies. To that extent, Tuesday's vote has badly bruised him, leaving him to deal with a House controlled by the Opposition - with the Democrats having tasted blood, they can now be expected to move in for the kill, their eyes set on the 2008 presidential race. It must, however, be remembered that Mr Bush is not the first President to find himself dealing with a hostile House. Mr Bill Clinton, had found himself in a similar situation in 1994 but had skilfully used, to quote an analyst, negotiation, brinkmanship and bluffs to push through major legislation. There is no reason why Mr Bush cannot emulate his predecessor.
Provided he gets down to preparing a road map for Iraq and the future role of US-led forces in that country. Mr Bush's stirring call on the eve of the mid-term polls, urging Americans to "stay the course" in Iraq, does not appear to have convinced many voters. He must now seek bipartisan support to either maintain the status quo or work towards an exit for US troops from Iraq; going by the mood of the voters, he will be under increasing pressure to opt for the latter. Either way, the coming months are bound to be tumultuous and will decide the course of the war on terror. Make no mistake, if Democratic triumphalism overwhelms the need to take the war to its logical conclusion, Mr Bush's critics will have to contend with resurgent Islamism, this time far more vicious than has been seen till now. Worse, the reconfiguration of geopolitics in what the US refers to as 'extended Middle East' - from the Maghreb to Pakistan - that shall result if the Democrats are able to force the US Administration to abandon Iraq and Afghanistan to their fate will benefit nobody, more so the people who are celebrating the fall of Republican majority. As for India, this is hardly the moment to speculate on the future of the civil nuclear cooperation Bill simply because it is nowhere on the Democrats's radar screen.
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