Elliott Abrams: Time for a New U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (abbrev.)

[TomSea]

Excerpt:

Elliott Abrams to Majalla: Time for a New U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
by Joseph Braude

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In his Majalla interview, Abrams offered a first take on the implication of last week’s Congressional midterm elections, assessed the meaning of new steps toward Arab-Israeli rapprochement, and conveyed hope for a positive result from the intensifying U.S. sanctions on Iran.

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Prospects for foreign policy continuity despite a shift in Congress

Q: Now that the Democrats have won back a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, what political effects do you foresee?

A:The first question is whether the Democrats' control of the House is going to have a significant impact on any part of American foreign policy. One way of looking at that is institutionally. That is, the Democrats are going to have lots of investigations of the president and will try to make his life more difficult. They’ll even be talking about impeachment — though not do it, I think. In that situation, with Democratic control of the House and the Democrats attacking the president, does he say, ok, I cannot do any more domestic policy action for two years, so I’ll simply do foreign policy actions? Or does the White House draw in on itself and get concerned mostly with investigations and politics and lawyers and prosecutors, in which case foreign policy power will seep away toward the Defense Department and State Department? I don’t know the answers to that — but it’s important to watch, because sometimes in situations like this, the White House does more on foreign policy, and sometimes it does less.

Q: Democratic voices in Congress have also been critical of the President’s policies in the Middle East. How will they seek to change them?

Read more at: http://eng.majalla.com/node/47961/elliott-abrams-to-majalla-time-for-a-new-us-ambassador-to-saudi-arabia?platform=hootsuite