Parties Split on Response but United Behind France
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Version 0 of 1. WASHINGTON — Congress has come a long way from “freedom fries.” The Paris attacks have Washington expressing a new solidarity with France — a nation not too long ago derided by conservatives as a “so-called ally.” And the aftermath of the deadly violence is rapidly resetting the capital’s agenda as Republicans and the Obama administration clash over the rising fear of terrorism at home and how best to combat the Islamic State in the Middle East. Back in 2003, Republicans in Congress expressed their displeasure with France’s resistance to the war in Iraq by renaming French fries in the House cafeteria and considering other sanctions against the birthplace of Lafayette. After Friday’s violence, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan ordered the Capitol flags down to half-staff in respect to the victims and he ordered up classified intelligence briefings from the administration for lawmakers to try to get them up to speed. “This is a war,” Mr. Ryan said in a Monday radio interview with William Bennett, a prominent conservative who served as secretary of education under President Ronald Reagan. “They brought it to us, and so the question is, how do we finish it?” As Congress returned, House members lined up on the floor to demand an immediate halt to a plan to resettle Syrian refugees in the United States and to condemn the current White House strategy against the Islamic State. For all of its chronic inertia, Congress can be quickly stirred by a crisis like the Paris attacks, and the political and policy fallout was spreading quickly. The potential repercussions reached beyond the intensifying opposition to the refugee program. One proponent of pushing new authorization for use of military force against the Islamic State said the Paris attacks could rekindle that stalled effort. Intelligence officials said new restraints on spying had hindered attempts to identify terrorists as those officials tried to regain the offensive in that fight. But it was the refugee effort that vaulted into the center. Republicans seized on the Paris killings and the discovery of a Syrian passport near one of the attackers as evidence that the administration’s plan to admit refugees was a risky proposition that needed to be stopped. Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican running for president, couldn’t wait to offer legislation that would suspend entry visas to nationals of countries associated with a high risk of terrorism until a list of tough security requirements were in place — requirements not likely to be met anytime soon. Republicans are also likely to seize on the terror attacks as more evidence against closing the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility and relocating some of the remaining detainees to the United States, arguing such a transfer could encourage domestic attacks. With a spending package taking shape in advance of an early December deadline, Republicans could use the appropriations bills to prohibit spending on refugee efforts. And even some Democrats on Monday were urging caution on moving too quickly on the refugees. Senator Tim Kaine , the Virginia Democrat who has been calling for a new congressional vote on the parameters of the administration’s ability to wage war in the Middle East for more than a year, said he believed the attacks in Paris and new imperative among lawmakers to have their say on the strategy against the Islamic State could restore some momentum. “My sense is that it is the mutation of the threat that is going to finally force Congress to do something,” he said Monday. “If that day is not here today, the horror of Paris makes it unmistakable that Congress will have to address it.” Mr. Kaine had a personal brush with the attacks: He said a niece studying law in Paris happened to be in a cafe near one of the attacks and could hear the gunshots. The rising clamor for a more aggressive posture against the Islamic State contains some political risks for Democrats. Even though the Sept. 11 attacks occurred during a Republican presidential administration, Republicans often seek to emphasize tough-on-terror credentials, with some success. On Monday, the issue was quickly injected into Florida’s competitive Senate race, with a Republican candidate there, Representative Ron DeSantis , calling on his potential Democratic opponents to disavow the administration’s refugee program. Democrats have generally been supportive of President Obama on his approach to the Islamic State, and the president again on Monday resisted calls to change what he portrayed as an effective, long-term, multinational strategy against the terrorist regime or to turn away refugees. But Mr. Obama is not running for re-election next year while many congressional Democrats, particularly in the Senate, are. They may find themselves forced to separate themselves from the president as Republicans step up their criticism. The renaming of French fries and other digs at the French in the past came to be seen by many as a petty response to a serious policy difference as well as an insult to a nation considered America’s oldest ally. Some were already warning Monday that in responding reflexively to the Paris attacks, Congress could make another knee-jerk decision that lawmakers will come to rue. The question for Congress will be whether new urgency given to the fight against the Islamic State by the terror in Paris will stir a response that many in both parties can get behind or become another political dividing line in the run-up to the 2016 elections. |