As millions of Americans go to the polls Tuesday for a midterm election seen as a referendum on Barack Obama’s two years as president, U.S. relations with Turkey also hang in the balance.
The midterm polls will see 37 seats in the 100-member Senate up for election, as well as all 435 seats in the House, the lower chamber of the U.S. Congress. Though Obama’s administration has expressed confidence about its continued relationship with Turkey’s newly energized ruling party, many lawmakers in the restless Congress seek retaliation against Turkey for Ankara’s improved ties with Iran and worsened relations with Israel.
The first major test in the post-election period will come at a NATO leaders’ summit in Lisbon on Nov. 19 and 20, when the alliance will seek to endorse a common position on a U.S.-proposed missile shield to protect NATO members from ballistic threats from rogue states. Washington seeks to deploy the system’s special X-band detection radars on Turkish soil, an issue that has added further tension to the already stressed relationship between the two allies.
While the United States has designed the missile-defense system specifically as protection against Iran, Turkey has said it perceives no such threat from its eastern neighbor. Ankara has conditioned its support for the project – crucial given NATO’s process of making decisions by consensus – on unanimous NATO backing, a guarantee that its entire territory will be protected and no specific countries being singled out as potential threats.
Whether or not Turkey endorses the missile-defense project will be of key importance for its relations with Washington and the rest of the West. One danger for Turkey is a vote on a resolution recognizing Armenian claims of genocide that the House Foreign Affairs Committee narrowly approved in March. The Obama administration has thus far stood firm in its opposition to the bill, but U.S. Armenians seek a full House vote on the resolution during the “lame-duck” session that will follow Tuesday’s election.
If the legislation is not voted on this year, it will expire, and pro-Armenian lawmakers will have to reintroduce it in the new Congress to be elected Tuesday, which will take office Jan. 3, 2011. Any congressional sessions held between the election and that date are called “lame duck” sessions: ones that take place after the election for the next Congress has been held, but before the current Congress has reached the end of its constitutional term. The significant characteristic of such a session is that its participants are the sitting members of the existing Congress, not those who have just been elected to the new Congress.
Referendum on Obama
The midterm elections are expected to see Obama’s Democratic Party cede power to the opposition Republicans in the House of Representatives, while both parties will try hard to obtain the majority in the Senate. The upper chamber of Congress is currently controlled by the Democrats.
The results from Gallup’s Oct. 28-31 survey of 1,539 likely voters found that 52 percent to 55 percent of likely voters prefer the Republican candidate and 40 percent to 42 percent favor the Democratic candidate on the national ballot.
Obama campaigned in Ohio on Sunday in an effort to prevent what would be one of the biggest setbacks for a U.S. president in recent times, while Republicans seemed confident of their expected success.
The Republican Party needs to pick up only 40 Democratic seats to regain a majority in the 435-seat House. The Senate is up for grabs, but even if the Democrats retain their control there, their majority will definitely shrink.
If the Republicans win the House, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have to cede her post to John Boehner, the present Republican minority leader. Analysts suggest that Obama’s disappointing performance in handling the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, coupled with a general public dissatisfaction over the present Congress, are key factors diminishing the Democrats’ strength.
In the last general elections in 2008, the Democratic Party won a landslide victory, capturing the presidency and comfortable majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Still no US ambassador in Turkey
The pending lame-duck session of Congress may also affect the position of U.S. ambassador in Ankara, a post that has remained empty for more than three months.
The last ambassador to Ankara, James Jeffrey, now is ambassador to Baghdad, and his presumed successor, Frank Ricciardone, has thus far failed to win Senate confirmation, with prominent Republican Senator Sam Brownback effectively blocking his appointment.
If Brownback lifts his veto – and there has been no sign of that so far – Ricciardone could be confirmed in the Senate’s lame-duck sessions, which are scheduled to begin Nov. 15. If Brownback refuses to change his stance, however, or if the lame-duck Senate fails to vote on the appointment, the post of ambassador to Ankara would remain vacant at least until the new Congress convenes in January. Alternatively, Obama might withdraw Ricciardone’s nomination and propose someone else to this post.
Obama’s ambassadorial picks for Syria and Azerbaijan, Robert Ford and Matt Bryza, respectively, also are facing vetoes in the Senate. U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley has said the Senate’s failure to approve Obama’s ambassadorial nominees has hampered U.S. policy.
“It does have an impact,” Crowley said Oct. 11. “These are vitally important countries to the future of the region. They are countries that we need that kind of day-to-day interaction with.”
The spokesman said the State Department was “hopeful that when the Senate reconvenes after the election that their nominations will go forward. We continue [to be] in consultation with the Senate on those nominations.”
Umit Enginsoy
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