| | | | Congress should stop Saudi war in Yemen | | The US midterm results are in—and it's time for Congress to exert its influence on foreign policy, Brian McKeon and Caroline Tess argue in Foreign Affairs.
"Congress should incorporate language explicitly barring US forces from refueling Saudi planes and from offering intelligence support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen in the annual defense authorization bill," McKeon and Tess suggest.
With Democratic control of the House, "Congress has a chance to influence the administration's foreign policy." Congress "has the power of the purse, the power to declare war, and the power to regulate the armed forces, trade, and immigration."
"More broadly, Congress should take steps to safeguard the United States' role in the international order," especially "multilateral institutions," like NATO and the World Trade Organization.
| | Be the Global Briefing Editor! | | | Hello loyal newsletter readers, Fareed here. Are you (or is somebody you know) eager? Ambitious? Do you have a passion for foreign policy? Are you a great reader of all things international? Can you write and edit well? If you answered "yes" to all of the above, please apply to be the next editor of this newsletter. | | Speculations about a November Brexit deal with the European Union abounded today. And UK Prime Minister Theresa May's office is warding off reports about leaked documents while trying to deal quietly with unfriendly parties at home.
May appears to be under siege, but "Mrs. May's allies and advisers are telling a very different story," writes Jenni Russell for The New York Times. "A deal with Brussels is imminent, and, they say, it will be on Mrs. May's terms." The PM's non-confrontational approach has been a strategy for dealing with Brexit hard-liners and Euroskeptics.
Nevertheless, Russell argues, "her strategy will still turn out to have been a dangerous mistake once Brexit finally arrives. Only brave leadership — not back-room games — can save Britain."
May's strategic stealth is actually her "fatal flaw": now that a deal is likely imminent, Russell says, "She needs support she has not bothered to build."
| | Brexit Teaches Britain its Place | | "The philosophy of Brexit was that, freed of EU constraints, the UK would take its rightful place in the world," writes Robert Shrimsley for the Financial Times. "Alas that place is not as the great power of their imagination."
The British "vision of the nation as indispensable world player" is why "the Brexiters cling so desperately to the theory that Theresa May has betrayed Brexit. The alternative is to accept that it is their own reckless chauvinism that has reduced the UK to the role of supplicant with its former partners."
Even Brexiteers' American friends should be suspect: "Trump is pro-Brexit because he wants to see a weakened EU, not to play benefactor to the UK. EU nations will be similarly cut-throat."
But, Shrimsley suggests, "If Brexit helps the UK come to a more accurate realisation of its global significance, some good may yet come out of this wretched business. Still, it seems an expensive way to learn a lesson." | | | | | | |
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