Aftandilian Publishes Op-Ed on U.S. Midterm Elections
Gregory Aftandilian, Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a recent Op-Ed on what the outcomes of the recent midterm elections in the United States means for President Donald Trump’s Middle East Policy.
Aftandilian’s Op-Ed, entitled “Democrats’ House Victory Means More Scrutiny of Trump’s Mideast Policies,” was published in The Arab Weekly on November 11, 2018.
From the text of the article:
Although the outcome of the US midterm elections was mixed, with Republicans retaining control of the US Senate and the Democrats taking over the House of Representatives, the latter result is likely to lead to more questioning and perhaps some blocking of US President Donald Trump’s Middle East policies.
Human rights concerns in the Middle East will likely become more prominent in Congress. Take, for example, US aid to Egypt. Although some Republicans, such as Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have been critics of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s crackdowns on dissent, most criticism of Egypt has come from Democrats.
Republicans have generally given Egyptian authorities a good deal of leeway because of their antipathy towards the Muslim Brotherhood. Although many recent detainees in Egypt have been dissidents of secular-liberal backgrounds, many Republicans in Congress, particularly in the House, have evinced sympathy for Sisi in what they see as his campaign to hold the line against Islamists of various stripes.
With Democrats soon in control of committees in the House, especially key ones such as Foreign Affairs and Appropriations, they are likely to join their Democratic colleagues in the Senate. Because of rules peculiar to the Senate, Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, has been successful in tying some portion of US military assistance to Egypt to human rights considerations.
Aftandilian spent over 21 years in government service, most recently on Capitol Hill where he was foreign policy adviser to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (2007-2008), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-2004), and foreign policy fellow to the late Senator Edward Kennedy (1999).