This year's midterm elections marked the first time since 9/11 that national security was not a major consideration for American voters. But it is precisely in the realm of foreign policy and national security that we may have the greatest opportunities for bipartisan cooperation between President Obama and resurgent Republicans in Congress.
Seizing these opportunities will require both parties to break out of a destructive cycle that has entrapped them since the end of the Cold War and caused them to depart from the principled internationalist tradition that linked Democratic presidents like Truman and Kennedy with Republican presidents like Nixon and Reagan.
During the 1990s, too many Republicans in Congress reflexively opposed President Clinton's policies in the Balkans and elsewhere. Likewise, during the first decade of the 21st century, too many Democrats came to view the post-9/11 exercise of American power under President Bush as a more pressing danger than the genuine enemies we faced in the world.
The larger truth was that the foreign policy practices and ideals of both President Clinton and Bush were within the mainstream of American history and values. And if one can see through the fog of partisanship that has continued to choke Washington since President Obama was elected in 2008, the same is true of the new administration as well.
President Obama has moved to the internationalist center on several key issues of national security. Although both parties are hesitant to acknowledge it, the story of the Obama administration's foreign policy is as much continuity as change from the second term of the Bush administration—from the surge in Afghanistan to the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, and from drone strikes against al Qaeda to a long-term commitment to Iraq.
Republicans have also stayed loyal to the internationalist policies they supported under President Bush. When they have criticized the Obama administration, it has reflected this worldview—arguing that the White House has not been committed enough in its prosecution of the war in Afghanistan or done enough to defend human rights and democracy in places like Iran and China.
The critical question now, as we look forward to the next two years, is whether this convergence of the two parties towards the internationalist center can be sustained and strengthened. There are three national security priorities where such a consensus is urgently needed.
The first is the war in Afghanistan. To his credit, President Obama last December committed more than 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as part of a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign, despite opposition within the Democratic Party.
Having just returned from Afghanistan, I am increasingly confident that the tide there is turning in our favor, with growing signs of military progress. But as Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has warned, success will come neither quickly nor easily, and there is still much tough fighting ahead. It is all but certain that no more than a small number of U.S. forces will be able to withdraw responsibly in July 2011, and that success in Afghanistan is going to require a long-term commitment by the U.S. beyond this date.
Sustaining political support for the war in Afghanistan therefore will increasingly require President Obama and Republicans in Congress to stand together. Failure to sustain this bipartisan alliance runs the risk that an alternative coalition will form in Congress, between antiwar Democrats and isolationist Republicans. That would be the single greatest political threat to the success of the war effort in Afghanistan, which remains critical to our security at home.
The second priority for national security bipartisanship must be stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability—an event that would dramatically undermine our national security. Here, our record in Congress over the past two years provides reason for optimism. Despite pervasive distrust and division between the two parties on most issues, Democrats and Republicans voted overwhelmingly together to pass the toughest Iran sanctions legislation ever. Now we must ensure that sanctions are aggressively enforced. We must also work together to send a clear message to the Iranian regime that the U.S. is unified and determined to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability—through peaceful means if we possibly can, by other means if we absolutely must.
A third priority for bipartisan cooperation should be the Asia-Pacific region, where American businesses have great opportunities to open new markets that will create jobs here at home, and where both old allies and new friends are looking to Washington for strong, principled leadership in the face of an assertive China. Both of these in turn require that the U.S. adopt a forward-looking, optimistic trade strategy.
Unfortunately, for the past several years, America's trade policy has been stuck in political gridlock—an impasse that President Obama and congressional Republicans can now break. The logical starting point for this effort is the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement, which President Bush negotiated and President Obama has embraced. As soon as U.S. and South Korean negotiators can resolve the few final disagreements, hopefully within weeks, this pact should move forward.
While the American people once again voted for change this month, it remains a daunting task to temper the predictable partisan squabbling in Washington that has already begun. Ironically, it may in the end be easier to do so in foreign policy than domestic policy. President Obama and congressional Republicans have a historic opportunity—to build a new consensus that brings Democrats and Republicans together on some of the most important foreign policy challenges facing America, and thereby makes our country both safer and more prosperous.