Will Congress be up to the challenges of January?
The Chinese word for crisis – Wei Ji – contains within it the word for opportunity – Ji – or as former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emauel once observed, never let a good crisis go to waste.
A self-inflicted crisis will be arriving in the coming days and it is called January. Will Washington have the wisdom to find the opportunity that lies within?
In the coming five weeks or so, the Congress must find the way to fund the government – four months deep into the fiscal year; to act on funding for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and the border — while possibly amending our complex immigration laws for the first time in decades; and do all this as the primary season begins with all the swirling political crosscurrents.
The lynch pin is the fight over border security/Ukraine aid. While surveys suggest at least two-thirds of the Congress supports aid for Ukraine, the Republican have found leverage in tying changes in asylum and humanitarian parole rules to the badly needed aid as Russia readies a winter onslaught against Ukraine’s infrastructure.
From the Democrats’ point of view, this is just hostage taking that damages America’s national security and prevents the execution of its foreign policy.
However, the situation at the border is untenable and President Biden has been getting an earful, not just from Fox News but from Democratic mayors and governors. Illinois Senator Dick Durban, after a recent trip to the southern border, stated clearly that we face challenges that we have never faced before.
President Biden recognized that and proposed $14 billion in funding for border security and the more rapid processing of asylum-seekers (most of whom are denied). What’s puzzling, however, is why Republicans have chosen Ukraine as the “hostage” in this drama.
The urgency is surely one reason, but there is a strange stew brewing. There is the trope about sending money abroad when we have problems at home. However, 80 to 90 percent of the money stays in the U.S., either to pay for the manufacture of weapons and ammunition being sent to Ukraine or money to backfill Pentagon supplies when we draw down our own arsenal to help Ukraine.
Some cite Ukrainian corruption, but that ignores the progress Ukraine has made and the fact that most of the money stays in the U.S. Some argue that the war is stalemated so why pour more money into an unwinnable war?
A pair of articles in The Economist in early November with Ukraine’s top commander – General Valery Zaluzhny – caused a stir in Washington and Kyiv because he seemed to say the war was stalemated, but a closer reading of the interview and his essay suggests it is not that simple. To me, what he said is that given Ukraine’s current capabilities they were unable to make significant progress.
That does not mean that Ukraine’s capabilities cannot improve. This is a war that resembles the trench battles of World War I with a 21st century twist of drones and electronic warfare. As one Ukrainian commander observed, “we see everything they do and they see everything we do.”
Then there are also those on the fringe of the Republican Party who support Vladimir Putin because they see him as a champion of Christian values, especially his harsh rhetoric against homosexuality. When you pick them apart, none of these arguments stand up.
The importance of preventing Putin from invading and subjugating a sovereign state that has chosen to tie its future to the West should be self-evident. If the U.S. and its allies don’t stand up to this kind of naked aggression, then, in the words of scholar Robert Kagan, “the jungle grows back.”
Will Congress seize the opportunity to do the right thing?
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.